Lavish Lace by L.Adair

A Short Explanation of Lavish Lace Filter Controls

Lavish Lace is capable of creating a wide variety of patterns, in part because it utilizes all seven shapes of the Kaleidoscope component. (JLE Bridal Lace uses only the Hexagon shape to control the pattern.) In fact, Lavish Lace uses all the inputs of the Kaleidoscope component:

Pattern Style: Selects the "Mode" or shape. (Square, Triangle 1, Triangle 2, Rhomb 1, Rhomb 2, Rhomb 3, and Hexagon.)
Pattern Variation 1: Controls the H Offset.
Pattern Variation 2: Controls the V Offset.
Mesh Scale: Controls the number of pattern repeats, up to 5. (The higher the number, the smaller the pattern.)
Mesh Variation: Controls the size of the medallion, (the central shape,) and fills in the space between medallions with additional mesh.

Mesh Shift affects an earlier process in the filter, which uses a Tile component. It shifts the rows from a square pattern to a diagonal pattern. While the effect to the pattern is not subtle, it won't force the medallions to line up square or diagonally.

With so much control over pattern creation, it is possible to create patterns that don't work well as a lace fabric, which wouldn't have any "floating" elements. You can correct that with Thread Thickness.

Thread Thickness will make the overall pattern more dense when you increase it, usually connecting any "floaters," or make the overall pattern more delicate when you decrease it.

Thread Variation, Thread Detail and Thread Roughness all vary the surface of the pattern by controlling different elements of the noise input. All three controls create subtle differences in the surface. I like to start with them all set to the maximum, create my pattern, and then adjust each of them to find the effect that fits my needs.

Thread Color is, obviously, the color of the thread. However, you can also use an image input. Using a distinct image with a dense pattern, such as the preset uses, you can create a tapestry-like effect. Using a subtle seamless off-white grunge image can produce an "aged" appearance to the lace, (and why I set the input to take images.)

Thread Brightness will lighten the Thread Color. If you are using an image, for example, you can increase the brightness to get a more subtle image effect. (The preset uses Thread Brightness at 50%.) The reason for adding this control was specifically to lighten black thread enough to "see" the "threads." However, you can get some interesting effects by lightening any color thread, (except white, of course.)

Background Color is used by the Background Options control when not using a transparent background.

Background Options is a Switch with 12 inputs. Here is a list of what you get when you select one of the Background Options:

Black
White
Bkgd Color
Bkgd Color Noise Variation
Bkgd Color Noise Variation
Bkgd Color Noise Variation
Gray Noise Variation
Gray Noise Variation
Thread Color Inverted
Thread Color Inverted Noise Variation
Thread Color Inverted Noise Variation
Thread Color Inverted Noise Variation

Note: Using black and/or white for Thread Color and/or Bkgd Color will result in fewer Bkgd Variations

Transparent Bkgd removes the background fr om the pattern when selected.

This covers all the current controls. I hope this extra bit of information will assist you getting the look you're after.

Enjoy,
L'Adair

Here's another render I did to showcase the lace. This ended up a complete scene because the white lace, where the tablecloth hung down from the table, just didn't stand out on a white background. I added the apartment set, then the table looked out of place by itself. So I added chairs, then dishes, and finally the flowers.


(You can view the full-size image in my DAZ gallery here.)