Smoke, like Water, comes from the old IPAS collection of the 3D Studio DOS days.
Its intended function is to create the appearance of a smoky-like surface on whatever object you have applied it to.
However, the smoke map can serve as other great effects, such as clouds or other gaseous anomalies.
The interface of Smoke is very simple.
By now, you may be starting to notice a pattern in the interfaces.
There are some small differences in the naming of the various parameters, but you are basically controlling the same thing.
The only item that is really changing is the mathematical function (or algorithm) that controls the random behavior of the map.
For instance, the Exponent parameter is controlling the threshold between Color #1 and Color #2.
For the most part, it works just like the Amplitude parameter of the Water map.
The Iterations parameter is very similar to the Iterations of the Splat map.
The more iterations you have, the more puffs of "smoke" you will have.
Dent, as its name implies, creates a nice, pitted surface on your material when used as Bump map.
Ported from an old IPAS plug-in for 3D Studio DOS, the Dent map's functionality has not changed all that much.
And like many of the other maps, the parameters are fairly simplistic.
A quick overview is that Size controls the size of the Dent map, Strength is the threshold (predominance) value between Color #1 and #2, and Iterations controls how many dents there are.
The Dent map is not all that exciting when just being used as a Bump map.
Instead of limiting it to the Bump Map channel, try using it with the Self-Illumination Map channel and even Shininess.
Dent would also work well as a component of a Mask map for creating splotchy "Shroud of Turin" texture effects.
For Dent to look rather good, you will need to increase the size.
The default of 200 produces too small of a dent pattern that almost looks like it is tiling.
Instead, increase the size to around 500.
you will notice that the result is much better.
As you can see, you can use many different settings within the maps discussed to create very convincing effects.
Although you did not create the sky, take some time to analyze how the material was built.
You can see that it simply incorporates the composition of the Gradient Map and the Noise map to produce a sunset and cloud effect.
Its intended function is to create the appearance of a smoky-like surface on whatever object you have applied it to.
However, the smoke map can serve as other great effects, such as clouds or other gaseous anomalies.
The interface of Smoke is very simple.
By now, you may be starting to notice a pattern in the interfaces.
There are some small differences in the naming of the various parameters, but you are basically controlling the same thing.
The only item that is really changing is the mathematical function (or algorithm) that controls the random behavior of the map.
For instance, the Exponent parameter is controlling the threshold between Color #1 and Color #2.
For the most part, it works just like the Amplitude parameter of the Water map.
The Iterations parameter is very similar to the Iterations of the Splat map.
The more iterations you have, the more puffs of "smoke" you will have.
Dent, as its name implies, creates a nice, pitted surface on your material when used as Bump map.
Ported from an old IPAS plug-in for 3D Studio DOS, the Dent map's functionality has not changed all that much.
And like many of the other maps, the parameters are fairly simplistic.
A quick overview is that Size controls the size of the Dent map, Strength is the threshold (predominance) value between Color #1 and #2, and Iterations controls how many dents there are.
The Dent map is not all that exciting when just being used as a Bump map.
Instead of limiting it to the Bump Map channel, try using it with the Self-Illumination Map channel and even Shininess.
Dent would also work well as a component of a Mask map for creating splotchy "Shroud of Turin" texture effects.
For Dent to look rather good, you will need to increase the size.
The default of 200 produces too small of a dent pattern that almost looks like it is tiling.
Instead, increase the size to around 500.
you will notice that the result is much better.
As you can see, you can use many different settings within the maps discussed to create very convincing effects.
Although you did not create the sky, take some time to analyze how the material was built.
You can see that it simply incorporates the composition of the Gradient Map and the Noise map to produce a sunset and cloud effect.
Source...