Hex Iso Flow
Smooth circular bumps arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Each hex cell grows a soft cosine bump, producing a dense, organic bubble texture. The hexagonal arrangement avoids the grid-like regularity of rectangular layouts, creating a more natural, honeycomb-derived pattern.
Parameters
Amplitude- Bump height in mm (0–20). Controls how far each hex bump protrudes from the surface.
Freq U- Hexagonal cell frequency around the circumference (1–20). More cells create a denser hex lattice.
Freq V- Hexagonal cell frequency along the height (0.5–20). Controls the vertical density of the hex grid.
Bump Radius- Bump footprint relative to cell size (0.1–1.5). At 0.5, bumps are well-separated with flat gaps. At 1.0, bumps just touch. Values above 1 cause bumps to overlap and merge.
Smoothing- Blends bumps toward neutral displacement (0–1). Useful for creating very soft, subtle hex gradients.
How It Works
Hex Iso Flow maps each vertex to the nearest hex cell center, then computes a cosine bump based on the distance from that center. The bump peaks at the cell center and falls to zero at a distance determined by the Bump Radius parameter.
The Smoothing parameter interpolates the bump displacement toward zero, reducing the overall effect strength. This differs from reducing the amplitude — smoothing preserves the bump shape but reduces its prominence, which is useful for creating subtle surface variation that catches light without dramatically altering the silhouette.
The hexagonal layout is computed using standard axial hex coordinates, which naturally tile the UV plane without gaps or overlaps.