Create a new Bitmap object by double clicking on "Bitmap"
in the Object panel, or by selecting the "--- new Bitmap ---" item in the
"Bitmap" pulldown in a Texture or other object.
The first thing you will see is the "Open Image File" file dialog.
If you want this Bitmap object to utilize a bitmap file already
existing on your hard drive, use the file dialog to select the bitmap file now. Note that
the file dialog only allows you to select files from one of the bitmap file formats
supported by K-3D: Windows Bitmap (bmp), Targa Image (tga), and JPEG (jpg). You can use the "Files of Type"
pulldown box to filter out individual file formats, or you can leave it set to "All
Image Files" (the default). Select a bitmap image to load. The Bitmap dialog will
open, displaying info about the file you just loaded. The File Path control displays the
location of the image, while Width and Height display its dimensions. Note that
these three controls are all "read-only" ... you cannot change their values
because these parameters are determined by the contents of the file on disk. You can click
the View button to open a BitmapViewer that displays the Bitmap image full size. When you
click on the "Alpha" tab of the Bitmap dialog, youll see similar
information displayed for the images alpha channel. In this case, the File Path is
blank, and the Width and Height controls contain the same values as those on the
"Image" tab, because by default, the Bitmap objects alpha channels is
being drawn from the same file as the image. If an image does not contain an explicit
alpha channel, the Bitmap Object will provide a default, 100% opaque alpha channel. You
can click the View button to open a BitmapViewer that will display the Bitmap alpha
channel full size as a greyscale image. If you move to the "Preview" tab of the
Bitmap dialog, you will see the image displayed as two squares: the square on the left is
a thumbnail of the Bitmap image, and the square on the right is a thumbnail of its
alpha channel.
If you wish instead to generate a custom procedural bitmap with this
Bitmap object, hit the Cancel button in the file dialog that is opened when you first
create the Bitmap. The Bitmap dialog will open. Note that File Path is blank, and the
Width and Height controls are set to "0" for both the "Image" and
"Alpha" tabs. Also note that the Width and Height controls are no longer read
only: you can enter values for Width and Height to make your procedural bitmap as large or
small as you like. Note that the Width and Height values are always the same for the image
and alpha channels - when you change a value on one tab, the values automatically change
on the other. You use the Procedure pulldown boxes on the "Image" and
"Alpha" tabs to specify which algorithms should be used to control the image and
alpha channels respectively. When you open either Procedure pulldown box, you will see a
list of options including a series of "--- new ProcedureType ---" items, where
ProcedureType is the name of a Bitmap Procedure object installed on your system. At a
minimum, you should see "--- new Checkerboard ---", "--- new FractalNoise
---", and "--- new Marble ---" in the list, since these are the three
Bitmap Procedure objects shipping with K-3D as of this writing. Selecting one of these
items will create a new Bitmap Procedure object of the given type, and assign it to the
image or alpha channel, depending on which you are working with. The pulldown box list
will also contain a list of names of all the Bitmap Procedure objects that have already
been created within the current document. This allows you to share a Bitmap Procedure
object between two Bitmap objects, or between a Bitmap objects Image and Alpha
channels.
When you create a new Bitmap Procedure object, its dialog will
open and you can alter its controls in the usual fashion to alter the image it
creates. If you close the Bitmap Procedures dialog, you can reopen it either by
double-clicking the LMB on its name in the Hierarchy Panel dialog or by clicking the
Edit button on the appropriate channel tab. As you make changes to a Bitmap Procedure,
youll see the Bitmap dialog "Preview" tab update automatically, along with
any open BitmapViewers, and all Camera.
If you want to change the image file that a Bitmap utilizes, or you
want to reload the same image file after making changes to it in another program, select
the "--- new File Image / Alpha" in the Procedure pulldown box. A file dialog
will open and you can select the file.
If you want to use separate files for the image and alpha channels,
simply create the Bitmap object, then use the "--- new File Image ---" item in
the "Image" tab Procedure pulldown or the "--- new File Alpha ---"
item in the "Alpha" tab Procedure pulldown to specify separate files. This will
allow you to use Bitmaps with alpha channels even if you dont own paint software
that allows you to edit alpha channels. Note that the files must
have the same width and height.
Finally, you can mix-and-match bitmap images with procedural images
in the same Bitmap, with the caveat that the width and height of a bitmap image always
takes precedence over the width and height you may have previously specified for
procedural images.
Once created, your Bitmap object will be available for use by other
K-3D objects. The manner in which an object uses Bitmap objects will vary, although most
will use it "through" the use of a Texture object.