wooden surfaces

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trans ata
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wooden surfaces

Post by trans ata »

hey wats up

So I have an object that I want to look wooden. I have a good wood texture photo and I'm looking for advice on what shader(s) n stuff to use to make it look convincing. I've tried applying a NormalMapShader and using the wood texture as the bitmap and I got weird results with a bunch of black patches, but I'm probably not using it right. I just want it to have a grainy, textured look with really low reflection. Any advice?
v3rd3
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Re: wooden surfaces

Post by v3rd3 »

Would you please tell us which part of TS you are using, workspace or model side.

If you use a photograph as a normal map you will get oddball results. A normal map is viewable and most people confuse it with an image. It is really a data store with 3 values that identify the position of the point in 3d space. If you want a normal map for a surface then you should look into Xnormal or similar tools that can modify an image for you.

You will save yourself rendering time etc if you decide to use a bump map instead of a normal map. It really depends on the look you are trying to achieve, but a bump map will give the appearance of a textured surface.

The reflection side of things will require you either set a global value for the reflectance of the object you want. There are other factors you need to consider if you want to have something look realistic.

One of the things you should do is to look on the Caligari site for a course in texture making by a fellow named Norbert Esser. His course is a great help in terms of understanding how to use photographic textures and how to create a realistic scene. It is not the be all and end all but it is really good and will help you.

Let us know more about your project and we will help where we can.
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Buzz
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Re: wooden surfaces

Post by Buzz »

Hi,

perhaps this scene can help you.

Cheers.

ps. instead of an image as bumpmap you could use "Rough" for displacement.
That gives a nice soft reflection.
Attachments
wood example1.jpg
example.zip
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trans ata
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Re: wooden surfaces

Post by trans ata »

Thanks guys! Both the tutorial by Norbert Esser and Buzz's example were invaluable. I was trying to do the surfacing work in the workspace to begin with, which was my mistake.

Here's a pic I uploaded of a model in progress:

Image

It's far from done. I have a follow-up question about UV mapping. There are many faces on the model that are extremely small and/or only a very small portion of them is visible. I don't need to pay much attention to UV mapping on these faces; as long as they have the wood material and it's reasonably proportioned, the model will look fine. So I don't really want to have to UV map each of these faces individually. But applying a preset UV map to them leaves the textures way out of proportion; in other words, it spreads the entire texture out over one face or does something similar. I want the size of one texture pixel on these faces to roughly match that of the larger faces that I've UV mapped manually. Is there any way to do this without manually UV mapping each individual face?

I've already individually UV mapped each face in the model in the picture, but I'd like to have an easier way to do it in the future.

Thanks!
v3rd3
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Re: wooden surfaces

Post by v3rd3 »

You can try applying a texture to a cube and then use the controls to repeat the texture across the x or y axis, or both.

You can also use the controls to shift a textures position in the u,v space to reduce the appearance of repetition.

Following is a wip image from a sci-fi project I worked on some time ago that shows this technique being used for the large wood beams in this dragon worshipping church....
Attachments
this is the texture I used on the beams
this is the texture I used on the beams
20080524_dk_interior_t2.jpg
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Buzz
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Re: wooden surfaces

Post by Buzz »

I suggest to make use of a software called UVMapper. You can download it here: http://www.uvmapper.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I use this myself mainly with low poly objects and think it's doing a great job and will solve your problem. In order to work with an OBJ object into UVMapper you need the LUUV plugin. It's installed already during the installation of trueSpace but need to add it to your plugin list on screen. You'll find it in the tsx folder.

Success!
Cheers.
Attachments
UVmapTut01.jpg
UVmapTut02.jpg
UVmapTut03.jpg
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