Marble
Marble overview
Make a stone slab material from one image: its real size, a seamless tile or the slab once, a soft relief, the veins' own finish, the gloss you choose and optional wear.
Matelume Guide. Upcoming features are marked separately.
Marble makes a stone slab material from one image of the slab. Its colours and veins stay as photographed, and every detail is kept: the colour-flattening tools used for fabric are switched off for marble. You set its real size, make one tile that repeats (or use the slab once), then give it a very soft relief, a finish for its veins, an overall gloss and, if you like, a few signs of wear. Marble makes the stone surface itself: slabs, with no grout lines.
Start from your own or licensed images of the slab, supplied as flat scans, catalogue images or your own designs.
The steps
| Phase | Step | What you do | Guide page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Begin | Photo, Your software, Material type | Load the image, pick your programs, pick Marble | Get started |
| Prepare | Quality, Scale | Set the maps' size and the slab's real size | this page (Scale) |
| Prepare | Seamless | One repeating tile, or the slab once | Seamless slab |
| Craft | Soft bump | A gentle relief: pits and fissures | Soft bump |
| Craft | Roughness by selection | The veins' own finish | Gloss and veins |
| Craft | How glossy | The whole stone's finish, in gloss units | Gloss and veins |
| Craft | Imperfections | Optional scratches, wear, chips, dust | Imperfections |
| Export | Export | Save the maps, the vein mask and the .json | Exporting marble |
Five options, one recommended
The Soft bump, Roughness by selection and How glossy steps each offer five options. The recommended one is already selected and carries a Recommended mark, so you can move through the Craft steps as they are and change only what you want. The 3D view follows every choice, and the export makes the full set.
Scale
Set the real width of what the image shows: measure the area in the image, not the object it goes on. The height follows the image and is never stretched.
- Width: from 2 cm to 3 m. You can also type it next to "Or type it, in cm:".
- Quick picks: A small sample (10 cm wide), A stone tile (30 cm wide), A larger tile (45 cm wide) and A wide slab (140 cm wide).
A 10 cm ruler sits on the image, and the stone in the 3D view resizes while you drag. Everything after this step uses this size: the tile, the relief and the maps.
The 3D view
Marble opens on a Marble table. You can also show it on a Sphere or a Flat slab. A polished stone's relief and gloss live in its reflections, so the sphere is the best object for judging them.
Tip: Turn the sphere towards the light, or use Light in the 3D view's toolbar to turn the lights. Polished stone shows its relief and its finish only in the reflections.