billboards_base

Indicates that all lights influencing billboards will be computed by means of deferred shading. If disabled, forward shading will be used instead. Forward shading allows making billboards semi-transparent.

Auxiliary pass is used for writing the contour of object with the specified material into an auxiliary color buffer.

Locks billboards orientation along the X axis (by default billboards always face the camera).

Disabled Lock X	Enabled Lock X

Locks billboards orientation along the Z axis (by default billboards always face the camera). Billboards can be also locked along both X and Z axes, so they will be oriented perpendicularly to Y axis.

Enabled Lock Z	Enabled Lock X and Lock Z

Set billboards parallel to each other. If they are not axes-locked, they will be oriented strictly towards to the screen plane.

Disabled Screen aligned	Enabled Screen aligned

Sets billboards to always be of the same size regardless to the camera position.

Disabled Angular size	Enabled Angular size

The Emission option enables an additional emission texture providing the emission effect.

Diffuse map. A texture to define a surface's main color.

The texture is 4-channeled (RGBA):

1. RGB values store color information.
2. An alpha (A) value provides detail texture modulation and stores transparency values.
   • Transparency information (if the Alpha test blending preset is enabled):
     • White color indicates that the area will be visible.
     • Black color indicates that the area will be transparent.
   • Detail mask.
   Notice

   An alpha (A) value will store transparency values if an Alpha test blending preset is enabled. Otherwise it will store a detail mask.

Normal map. A texture to store information about a surface's normals deviation.

The texture is 2-channeled (RG):

1. RG values contain two components of a normal
2. The third component's value is calculated from the given components in run-time

Specular map. A texture to define a surface's shininess and highlight color.

The texture is 4-channeled (RGBA):

1. RGB values store reflection color and intensity (black color means no reflection)
2. An alpha (A) value specifies the specular power: 0 means specular highlights are very bright and intense, 256 - specular highlights are faded

Emission map. A texture to store information about the light emission. Additional emission texture is present only if an Emission option is enabled and is modified in the Additional field of the Textures tab.

The texture is 4-channeled (RGBA):

1. RGB values store a glowing color.
2. An alpha (A) value stores a glow mask: black is for non-glowing areas, white - for glowing ones.

Auxiliary texture is used to render it in auxiliary buffer.

A color picker to choose the color of the diffuse map.

A color picker to choose the color of the specular map.

A coefficient to modify size of the highlight of the specular map:

• Low values imitate wider highlights, typically appropriate to create diffuse reflection from the mat surface
• High values imitate pinpoint highlights, typically appropriate to create uniform reflection of light rays from the glossy surface

Normal is a coefficient to scale the intensity of the normals (provided by a normal map). The higher the value, the higher the normal texture effect is.

Scale of the translucency effect, which permits light to pass through the object, but diffuses it so objects on the opposite side are not clearly visible.

Coefficient to scale the intensity of the microfiber effect. The higher the value, the more pronounced the microfiber effect is.

Base texture coordinates transformation. A vector of the four float components, consisting of two pairs of vector elements:

1. Scale texture coordinates, along X and Y axes. For example, by the scale of 2;2 the texture will be repeated four times on the surface.
2. An offset of the texture respectively to its initial position along X and Y axes.
   For example, by the offset of 0.5 along X axis the texture will be repositioned to the right (so the left edge of the texture will be rendered in the center).

A color picker to choose an auxiliary color for the Auxiliary rendering pass.

A color picker to choose an ambient emission color for the emission texture.

Visibility scale for the emission texture.
The higher the value, the more visible emission texture is: light areas will be lighter and brighter.

Distance from the camera up to which the emission from the billboard will be visible, in units.

Power multiplier to scale distant dependent visibility of the emission texture. It determines the way the intensity of the emission effect changes depending on the distance from the camera.

Billboard geometry scale factor.

Minimum permissible size for the billboard, in pixels.

Angle limit in the XY plane relative to the -Y direction, in degrees. The billboard will be visible within the [-value; value] range of angles.

Angle limit relative to the Z axis, in degrees. The billboard will be visible within the [-value; value] range of angles..