Using layered materials in Showcase

This is the first entry of a series of how-to´s, I will post them from time to time to share best practice with you.

You know that Showcase is an easy to learn and easy to use system, but this does not mean at all that you will hit the border very soon. There are lots of cool things under the hood and our expert users always find workflows that push the visual quality one step beyond.
Did you know that Showcase can layer materials? Well the decals are acatually layered materials, defining the visibility of the material using a black and white mask. White is visible, black transparent, per definition. This is a typical decal from the Showcase library:

A color texture with a corresponding mask file that can be placed on top of any material.

We will use this feature but ignore the mask file The example I show here is about rendering a material that has a structured texture but is coated with clear paint. Carbon fiber is a perfect example for that. The only thing you have to do is to create the underlying material. In this case I have chosen a silver paint material.

and replaced the highlight texture and the bump/normal texture This gives you the highlights and the structure.
Now we do the trick: we add a glass material as a decal and instead of using the mask we use the white color and you get the desired look.

 Now you see the structure of the fibers and they seem to be coated. Check out this video that guides you through the whole process.

Have in mind that these kind of materials have a cost in terms of performance, because the object has to be drawn twice, but the result may be worth it.
Stay tuned
Alex