Real-Time procedural textures

Abstract

We describe a software system on the Pixel-Planes 5 graphics engine that displays user-defined antialiased procedural textures at rates of about 30 frames per second for use in realtime graphics applications. Our system allows a user to create textures that can modulate both diffuse and specular color, the sharpness of specular highlights, the amount of transparency and the surface normals of an object. We describe a texture editor that allows a user to interactively create and edit procedural textures. Antialiasing is essential for real-Time textures, and in this paper we present some techniques for antialiasing procedural textures. Another direction we are exploring is the use of dynamic textures, which are functions of time or orientation. Examples of textures we have generated include a translucent fire texture that waves and flickers and an animated water texture that shows the use of both environment mapping and normal perturbation (bump mapping).