Procedural wood

[CCS]

I tried Tom's method of splitting the material def so I could use the vraymtl I am familiar with.

Quick sample:

[percydaman]

agreed... tried out the python script and appears to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

[jujubee]

@CCS - material def???

@percydaman - python script???

What!?! -Is it just me or is this a disjointed/fragmented conversation?

[CCS]

A few things I'm struggling with:

1. The (adjusted) Simbiont mats look great on VIZ primitives of a certain size, but when I apply them to objects from linked drawings, they look all wrong. Same thing if I bind them. Any ideas?

2. I'm having trouble understanding scale. If I make larger objects, the look of the material changes. I've tried with and without "texture scale" checked (although I'm not sure what that does..)

3. If I have a cabinet door and all components are made of the same material, how do I shift the texture so it doesn't look like one continuous piece of wood? Also, how would I rotate the map to follow the length of the board as it should?



Here's a picture that shows the exact same scene as above. Just added boxes of different sizes, applied same mat to all, and rendered.

[CCS]

juju-

Read the links referenced and it will become clear.

[percydaman]

about the only thing I know is try the tiling and angle in the coordiantes rollout. Still new to it myself...

[jujubee]

Ah that's really cool. Thought it was just the reflectivity trick- didn't realize you could split the mats.

[CCS]

Just talked with someone in support at Darkling. Turns out the procedural I used was a simulated wood. (Not concentric rings, therefore no endgrain)

According to him, in order to reorient the map you need to do one of two things. One would be to adjust the material (tiling, rotation, etc.) That would be just ducky except I would have to define a separate material for each different grain direction. (Probably would only be a few in orthogonal cabinets, but still....)

But this still wouldn't address my problem of adjacent planks sharing grain. (For example, a picnic table top would have planks that would not be identical, but would look like they were cut from the same panel, with the grain continuing from one board to the next.)

The other way to do it (that would solve both problems) would be to adjust each object's mapping coordinates. I don't know how to do that though. He said (as does the online help) that you shouldn't change UVW mapping because they are procedurals, but rather should change how XYZs are mapped. Huh??? Any tips?

[Adam H. Stewart]

Simbiont scale issues

I have used Simbiont textures on a bunch of projects and the scale thing gets me everytime. I have to experiment with various values until I get a scale that looks appropriate.
Another thing I invariably end up doing is combining maps and settings to give a bit of variety to the textures, making minor tweaks and then applying them at subobject level to create say the planks of aged wood on a peer.
I do love procedurals but the fact that mapping modifiers have no influence over them does get very frustrating and means that there is an element of luck to the whole process.
But compared to unwrapping a bunch of geom for a complicated set it rocks.

[CCS]

Adam-

Do you have DarkTree, or just tweaking predefined textures with Simbiont?

[percydaman]

but rather should change how XYZs are mapped. Huh??? Any tips?

could be hes talking about texture coordinates?

[CCS]

Hmm. You mean like tiling, etc. within the material setting?

He was talking about a per-object modifier that defines how XYZs are mapped. Everything he said sounded like UVW to me, but he was very specific about an XYZ translation as opposed to UVW. But he's not a MAX user, so it's all generic terms.....

I still don't really understand what the "UVW to XYZ" mode of the UVW map does? Do you? Would it help in some way?

Still experimenting here. Let me know if you have any success.

[RErender]

Is it possible to change the mapping from Object XYZ to World XYZ in the simbiont materials? To get an Idea of what is happening you can use a regular Max procedural and switch between Planar from Object and Planar from World. In Planar from Object the scale of the map will vary with the size of an Object, In World the Map will always have the same scale no matter the size of the object.

[CCS]

Yes, you can do that. Doesn't help me with the rotation issue though. I can deal with the scale - that's no biggie. Because if I want to adjust the scale of a map, I most likely want to do so across the board. But rotation is usually an object-by-object, or even face-by-face issue.

[Adam H. Stewart]

UVW Mapping

UVW mapping modifier makes no difference to the mapping of Simbiont materials. You need to tweak scale and rotation using the Coordinates panel of the simbiont material.
You can tweak quite alot using just simbiont - I looked into Dark Tree but it is a farely complicated programme and have always found enough textures pre-built to play with. Depending on the material of course, I change color, grain size, roughness, bump size and then combine one or two maps together with a noise or cellular mask.
I won't pretend to understand the Mapping system used by Simbtiont texture but after experimentation I usually get results I am happy with.