RiverMan Media

DarkTree Textures from Darkling Simulations is one of those hidden gems of the graphics world that has permanently changed the way that I create art for games. Using a sublime blend of art and mathematics, DarkTree Textures allows you to create images and animations that would be virtually impossible to create by hand. I commonly use DarkTree textures to create special effects like flames and smoke. This tutorial will introduce you to the power of DarkTree by showing you how to create a simple but effective explosion animation.

DarkTree can be a rather challenging application to get started with. Many of the samples that it comes with are quite complicated, and it’s not always obvious how the creators achieved the effects that they’ve created. However, once you wrap your mind around the basics of how DarkTree works, experimentation is quite intuitive and you’ll be creating rewarding results in no time.

The Basics: Components and Links

Each project you create in DarkTree consists of components chained together by links. A component is essentially a “black box” that takes multiple inputs and generates an output. The output can either be a volumetric color image, a volumetric field of grayscale values, a volumetric field of bump map values, or a function.

Color, Percent, Bump, and Function components

The output of a component is determined by its inputs. By right-clicking on a component, you can see what input it takes.

The inputs of the Ether component

Green dots represent a color input, blue dots represent a bump input, gray dots represent a single value or percent input, and gray dots with a curve icon represent function inputs. Right now the two color inputs of the Ether component, “low” and “high” are not linked and therefore are the solid colors red and yellow. Let’s link the “low” input to the output of another color component.

Linking the “low” color of the Ether component to a checkerboard component

The reds have now been replaced by the checkerboard, but the yellows have stayed the same, since we didn’t link them. It is this composition of components through linking that will allow you to create sophisticated textures and effects in DarkTree.