1. Type of Mappings

Texture mapping is set in [Material Property] for each material.

Click [Prop] in [Material panel] to open [Material Property].

The [Mapping] section is at the bottom of the property dialog.

The types of texture mapping that can be specified in [Material Property] differ depending on the shader.

In this article, we will introduce three types of [Mapping] supported by [Phong] shader, which is the default material of Metasequoia.

Texture

The color or pattern of the image file is pasted to the surface. Texture mapping is an easier expression rather than coloring directly materials.

Specifying the texture mapping to the sphere

Alpha

It specifies the transparency according to the lightness of the image. Black is transparent, white is opaque, and gray parts are translucent.

Specifying Alpha mapping to a plate polygon

Bump

It specifies the unevenness on the surface by the image map. The surface looks uneven, but they are not actual polygons.
The mapping image that can be specified is either of two types.
Bump map specifies the unevenness with the lightness of 8-bit grayscale. Normal map specifies the normal direction in RGB values. (Other than 8-bit image is considered as a normal map.)

Bump map	Normal map

Specifying Bump mapping to a plate polygon

2.Projection Method

There are various types of projection methods for pasting 2D texture images into 3D objects.

Flat / Cylinder / Sphere

Arrange the texture image on a flat, cylinder or sphere and project it to the object.
In Metasequoia, you can use [Map] to adjust the placement of the projection source.

Flat	Cylinder	Sphere

UV

Create a development of the 3D object on the UV plane and make it correspond to the texture image.

UV development	3D object

Texture mapping to objects had complex shape is often UV method.