Materials and UVW Mapping Question and Wish

[Bighouse]

Revit has some serious limitations when handling materials, in particular when it comes to UVW mapping. Is it possible, using V-Ray materials instead, to have them behave differently than the Revit materials do? For instance, when using something like a floor to simulate a driveway, and modifying the subentity points on said driveway, it will often split the area into separate faces which EACH have the material UVW mapping applied differently than the entire top of floor system might. It results in less than ideal rendering conditions. So, is it possible to somehow have a V-Ray material that would IGNORE individual faces and simply map the material in a tiled manner across all surfaces and ignore the splits created in the material surface by Revit? If it's not currently possible, is it something that could be developed by Chaosgroup to make up for some of the horrible limitations that exist in Revit's use of materials?
I could see that, if the normals for a suface were say less than 20 degrees apart from each other, then it should be mapped as a single surface. That would allow for the proper application of a material in a planar manner to the top and sides of a driveway surface that changes elevations and has curved edges.

[Ana Lyubenova]

Hi Bighouse,

We are working to handle this limitation of Revit. Currently, you can use the tri-planar texture in the V-Ray material. However, it won't cover all the cases.
Will you be able to send us your driveway surface?

Best,
Ana

[Bighouse]

Ana,

I would be more than happy to send you the driveway. How do you like to receive such items? Do I just attach them to a message, or do you have an email or other method you like to use to collect such user data? (I'm new here so I'm learning how things work.) I'll include the the rvt model as well as some images of how it currently renders the material. I have yet to try the tri-planar texture in V-Ray- that may well solve my current issue.

I do have another material request/wish. I'd love to see a type of material that KNEW it was a linear oriented material. For instance, wood grains would automatically map to the longest direction on a surface. Doing so would make using the same material, say for all the web members of a truss, easy. Each member, whether horizontal, vertical or diagonal would render appropriately. This could have tremendous benefits for items like doors and cabinetry as well, eliminating the need to rotate a pattern or create different materials at different angles.

Robert

[Ana Lyubenova]

Hi Robert,

This is pretty useful feedback! Please, contact me at ana.lyubenova@chaosgroup.com
You can send the model there as well.

Ana

[Bighouse]

Ana,

Please check your email. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Robert