Scan to Tube

Scan to Tube rebuilds a scanned section of trunk as a clean tube with even UVs, using the skeleton from Scan Rig. The tube is what Bake turns into a tiling bark texture. It's on the Natsura toolbar under Scans.

Making a tiling texture from a scan

1. Scan to Parts: wire Import Highpoly's Proxy output into its first input, and select the section of trunk you want the bark from.
2. Scan Rig: wire Scan to Parts' first output into its first input, and place a skeleton down the section's centre.
3. Scan to Tube: wire Scan to Parts' first output into its first input, Proxy, and Scan Rig's Skeleton output into its second, Scan. It rebuilds the section as a tube.
4. Scan to Patch, if you want a square patch of the tube instead of the whole wrap: wire Scan to Tube's first output into its first input.
5. Bake: wire Scan to Tube's first output (or Scan to Patch's) into Bake's first input, Proxy, and Scan to Parts' first output into its second, Bake Target. Leave Bake Source empty, and turn on Make it Tile under Bake Processes.

The tube already tiles around its circumference, since a trunk wraps round on itself. Make it Tile handles the tiling along its length. With it on, press Enter on the Bake for a live preview, where Tiling Mask Preview shows where the texture tiles; press Esc when you're happy, then Bake All.

Inputs and outputs

Only the first output, Proxy, carries the tube; Lowpoly and Scan output nothing.

Settings

First U and Second U trim the tube to part of its length, from 0 at one end to 1 at the other. The rest (Shrink, rowsize, columns, uvscale, level of detail, subdiv and smooth) set how the tube is built.

Status

Scan to Tube is experimental.