## Creating a Metal floor tile

This tutorial will help you learning a bit more about MaPZone2 by creating a metal floor material from scratch.
Here is what we will try to achieve here :
First of all, let's create a basic diffuse color. I start with a dark blue noise.
Next I use a colorize+blend filter with another noise to add some more detail (through all the tutorial, the blending mode is indicated on top of the nodes in the green bubble).
The next filter I use will create some sort of brushed metal effect. I then adjust the transformation so I get thin lines all over the texture.
The fourth noise is used to add more color variations with dark colors. It is followed by a Uniform Luminosity/Contrast filter to reduce contrast a little.
The last filter here is used to lighten the edges of the tile, it will help breaking the uniformity of the diffuse color.
The second step will deal with the creation of a new fx-map needed for the height map.
Right-click on the graph window and click on New FX-Map -> Procedural FX-Map. Your map is made of 5 gaussians.
Click on the little arrow on the top right to display the Expert panel. If you are not familiar with fx-map creation you can start by trying all the settings to understand their effects on the fx-map.
You can also take a look at the FX-Map parameters documentation (bottom of the page).
Here is what you need to do to get the right fx-map for our material :
Now that you know how to create basic fx-map, let's create the height map. Remember that white represents bumps and black represents holes.
First, create a new fx-map and choose the pyramid pattern. Use a Colorize filter to create a little dark line around the tile by adjusting the gradient.
Now is the more difficult part: use your previously created fx-map with 2 Warp filters with the transformations indicated below. The triangles will warp the pyramid and create a small dark shape on the top and bottom.
The second warp filter will do the same on the left and right.
We also need a third custom fx-map for the bolts on the sides of the tile. You can create it the same way as you did with the previous one and using the settings below.
Now that we have our diffuse and heightmap, we'll deal with the specular map.
Here is an overview of what we need to do.
To achieve a metal look, we can simulate scratches on the edges.
First, we need to get the "hard edges" highlighted.
To do this, I use 2 Emboss filters on a black Uniform Color with the height map as a parameter. Since the emboss filter gives only the light information in one direction, we need to use 2 of them with inverse directions as seen on the image below.
Next we use a Uniform Mix filter to add those two.
Finally we use a Warp filter with a random noise to perturb the edges.
And then comes the last part of this tutorial.

1. The Uniform Mix filter adds the edges scratches to the diffuse.
2. The Uniform Lum is used to stenghten the contrast so the specular is much brighter. The Colorize+Blend is used with the same lines fx-maps we used before to match the specular with the thin lines on the diffuse map.
3. The Uniform Blur is set with a low value and added to the specular. It will create a bloom or blur effect on the specular map.
4. The Uniform Lum on the bottom left is used to raise the luminosity and contrast so we got an almost black and white texture as an output. The Uniform Mix Multiplies the specular map with the modified heightmap to erase any specular color in what should be the holes on the material.
5. That last Uniform Mix darkens the diffuse with the modified heightmap so the holes are darker.

The last thing to do, if you want to preview you map in the 3D viewport, is putting the specular map in an Alpha filter and plug it in the "diffuse" output node.
Also don't forget to plug the heightmap in a Normal Map filter and in the "normal" output.
Category:
CategoryGraphism