ColorEdge is a powerful procedural texture map for Autodesk® 3ds Max® that lets you create gradient effects on any visible edge of an object. With ColorEdge, you can easily blend between maps and materials, such as creating a smooth transition between a road or path mesh and a terrain.

ColorEdge is fully procedural and can be used with Max 2014 and above. The plugin comes with a variety of features that let you precisely control the placement of gradients, including offset, width, ramp up, and ramp down. You can even add noise effects to the gradient to break up the smooth transition.

To use ColorEdge, simply define the visibility of edges using 3ds Max's built-in Edit Mesh tools, and then use the Color Near Edge and Color Far Edge settings to set the gradient colors. The Color Ramp section lets you define the distances from the edge used to build a gradient using the supplied colors and the various parameters available.

ColorEdge also features a Noise section where you can add several types of procedural noise to your gradient. You can control the strength of the noise effect using the Amount setting and select from three different types of noise generators - Regular, Fractal, and Turbulence. The Levels setting lets you set the number of fractal iterations or turbulence, and the Noise Threshold group helps you create a smoother transition from the threshold value to the noise value.

Be aware that ColorEdge may slow down if you apply it to overly complex geometry, but the plugin comes with caches and buffers to speed up calculations.