GENETICA For 2D illustrators and 3D modellers
realistic natural textures are an essential tool of the trade and, for maximum flexibility and end quality, you really need to be able to create them yourself.

What makes Spiral Graphics' Genetica special is that it lets you build up your textures by combining basic building blocks or "nodes". This recipe-style approach offers huge advantages in that you can non-destructively fine-tune endless variations on a theme all of which are guaranteed to tile seamlessly. Even better, the textures are truly resolution-independent so they can be re-rendered at any size and at any level of detail. In short you can tailor a unique texture perfectly fitted to the job in hand.

The difficulty is that producing realistic end results as different as a zebra skin or a wooden crate can easily involve dozens of different interacting nodes. This has processing overheads, but far worse is the daunting complexity involved. This is the issue that Genetica 2 addresses. To begin with, the program now provides no less than 500 presets ranged into categories such as Cloth, Marble, Plant and Animal and so on. For most textures you can start with one of these presets and the job is already half done.
Even more significant is the introduction of a completely new type of master node called a "Lab". These Labs are used for handling common high-level texturing tasks - creating starting substances, fractal noises and wood patterns and then weathering, tiling and layering the results. Unlike the basic nodes which are each controlled with a couple of settings, each Lab provides a whole host of connected parameters and is capable of producing widely ranging results. With the Layering Lab for example you can produce effects as different as peeling paint, vents and grates or fabric weaves with all necessary controls immediately to hand.

For those advanced users looking for even more power, the new Genetica 2 Pro adds an Atmosphere node for creating realistic volumetric effects such as clouds, and a new Hair node and Fibre Lab for creating materials such as fur and grass. It also provides a batch processor so that you can automatically generate new texture variations and render your textures as ready-to-use bitmap presets at various resolutions. And it also provides an option for converting any Lab node back into multiple basic nodes so providing absolute control.

It's a useful option for experts, but for all users the real strength of Genetica 2 is the way that its new Lab-based system unlocks and unleashes the full potential of its existing texture engine.

3D graphics are created via the process of designing complex imagery from geometric shapes, polygons or nurbs to create realistic 3 dimensional shapes, objects and scenes for use in various media such as film, television, print and special visual effects. There are many software programmes for doing this. The mainstream media uses a lot of digital art in advertisements, and computers are used extensively in film to produce special effects. Desktop publishing has had a huge impact on the publishing world, although that is more related to graphic design. Anai - digital art (portrait) detail, 2005Nonetheless, digital art is yet to gain the acceptance and regard reserved for "serious" artforms such as sculpture, painting and drawing, perhaps due to the erroneous impression of many that "the computer does it for you" and the suggestion that the image created could be infinitly repeatable. Computers are also commonly used to make music, especially electronic music, since they present an easy and powerful way to arrange and create sound samples. It is possible that general acceptance of the value of digital art will progress in much the same way as the increased acceptance of electronically produced music over the last three decades. Some say we are now in a postdigital era, where digital technologies are no longer a novelty in the art world, and "the medium is no longer the message."