Forum: Carrara


Subject: texturing metaballs?

crocodilian opened this issue on May 22, 2008 · 3 posts


crocodilian posted Thu, 22 May 2008 at 1:18 PM

can metaballs have texture which blend between them, the way that they do in Bryce?  As far as I can see, you can only apply a shader to a metaball object, but you can't blend between two metaball objects into each other.


Pinklet posted Thu, 22 May 2008 at 4:12 PM

 I am not sure, but what you can do is convert them to a vertex model and handle it that way. i can not test right now. I am currently rendering something, but give that a try.


crocodilian posted Fri, 23 May 2008 at 8:33 PM

> Quote -  I am not sure, but what you can do is convert them to a vertex model and handle it that way. i can not test right now. I am currently rendering something, but give that a try.

Thanks for that idea . . . but that isn;t close to the Bryce functionality which actually blends textures-- you get beautiful results.

Playing around, I discover that it is possible in this Metaball engine. You can select metaballs as the particle type from a particle emitter, and that has a time component to the shader. Animate the shader, and you;ll get particles of different colors being emitted, and blended.

Its not nearly as beautiful as a Bryce metaball blend, but it does demonstrate that the engine supports this. . . an area open for investigation -- or, dare I say it-- a bit of clarification from Daz