Material Creator

The material creator automatically creates a material for textures using naming convention.

Given a textures folder, it recusively searches it for textures to match up into a material.

Generated materials are handled as if they had a file path relative to a given materials output directory, and use the diffuse texture’s name without the suffix and file extension.

The default texture type naming convention is:

  • _D suffix for diffuse
  • _N suffix for normal
  • _S suffix for specular
  • _E suffix for emmisive

For example, if the material creator finds files wall_D.tga, wall_N.tga, wall_S.tga inside the same folder, it will generate a material for them using DiffNormalSpec technique.

Only diffuse texture is mandatory, the rest are optional.

Diffuse and emissive textures can have variation, that will use the same normal and specular textures. Variation naming convention is _[N] suffix before the texture type suffix, where [N] is the variation number, starting from 0. For example wall_0_D.tga.

If a file doesn’t match the naming convention, it’s assumed as a diffuse texture.

The material creator also detect alpha in the diffuse texture, and if found uses alpha masking for the material.

You can replace a generated material with your own custom material by placing your material file at the file path the generated file would have.

For example: if Textures/ is the material creator’s textures directory, and Materials/ is the output directory, you can provide your own material for texture Textures/Floors/floor.tga by placing your file at Materials/Floors/floor.xml.