Matelume Matelume
Try Matelume free

Metal

Metal overview

Make a metal material from a photo of a metal or from a colour: pick the metal, set its shine, add an effect and a little wear, then export it for your programs.

Current release: Matelume 2.0

The Material type step with Metal chosen from the six material types.
Choose Metal under Material type. The panel sums up the steps.

The steps

  1. Begin: on the Photo step, add a photo of a metal, or start from a colour with the Colour catalogue or the Colour wheel. Pick your programs under Your software, then choose Metal under Material type.
  2. Prepare, for a photo only: set its Real size, then make it Seamless.
  3. Metal: pick one of the 41 metals, or keep your own colour or photo. Colour and shine
  4. Shine: set how shiny it is, from matte to a mirror.
  5. Effect: None, Brushed, Hammered, Bead-blasted or Linen. Effects
  6. Imperfections: Scratches, Fingerprints and Small dents, each starting at 0 %. Imperfections
  7. Export: the maps for your programs. Exporting metal

From a photo

On the Photo step, click Choose a photo and pick a flat photo of the metal. After Material type, two Prepare steps fit it to the real world.

The Real size step for a metal photo: set how wide the photo is in real life, with quick sizes.
The Real size step for a metal photo, with its quick sizes.
  1. On the Real size step, set the real width of what your photo shows: drag Width, or type it next to Or type it, in cm:. Measure across the metal in the photo.
  2. Or pick one of the Quick sizes: A close-up (5 cm of metal), A sample (15 cm wide), A panel (50 cm wide) or A sheet (1.5 m wide).
  3. On the Seamless step, adjust Photo kept until the join disappears.

The height follows the photo and is never stretched. The seamless tile, the effect and the exported maps all follow this size. The finished map is one tile; the 2 × 2 view only checks that it repeats.

The Seamless step: one tile of the photo that repeats, shown as a 2 x 2 test with the Photo kept slider.
The Seamless step: one tile, repeated 2 × 2 to check the join.

From a colour

No photo? On the Photo step, open the Colour catalogue or the Colour wheel. The catalogue's Metals tab has the metal colours. Click a colour to see it in 3D; Continue makes it your image. A colour start has no Real size or Seamless step.

Starting a metal from a colour: the Colour catalogue with its Metals tab and the metal colour chips in groups.
Starting from a colour: the Colour catalogue's Metals tab.

The 3D view

Metal opens on a sphere, its usual object. With the object buttons at the top of the 3D view, you can also show it on a flat panel or a wall panel. The 3D view and the close-up change as you pick, at the real size.

The 3D view on its usual object, a sphere of brushed steel, in the big 3D material view.
Metal's usual object in the 3D view: a sphere.
The same steel on a wall panel in the 3D view.
The same steel on a wall panel.

Under Views, Close-up 30 cm, Furniture 1.5 m and Room 4 m show your metal from those true distances. They change the preview only; the maps stay the same.