The first item.

I can make tiles in the "Material system" but I have not found a way to make the tiles look random.

I can make an image of the tiles and copy and paste each of the tiles to make a random look but I was hoping there was a way to do it in the “Material system”.

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The second item.
Can someone give me some tips on how to make a good looking piece of wood with grains.

I can't help you with true randomizing of the tiling.
For that you could perhaps add an Expression in an Action.
The material itself would have to be set up in such a way as to take advantage of the randomizing.

If variation will satisfy your need then I recommend looking into Gradient Materials.
You can use Gradient Materials to nest other materials within each other to make more complicated materials.

Combining a simple image mask to vary the color of the tile might produce the effect of randomizing the tile as well.

For more variation and the wood texture you might want to look into Marcel Bricman's Bitmap Plus. It uses images but very effectively.

To create optimized wood textures look for and study the makeup of some of the wood materials that are available.

Attached is a screencapture of a quickly created gradient material applied to an image with paint swatches. Note that the first Attribute in the Gradient material is left alone to allow transparency so that the underlying material setting show through.


Link to: Bitmap Plus
Link to: Materials Laboratory

Yves Poissant has a wonderful tutorial on creating wood materials on his site:

http://www.ypoart.com/tutorials/wood/index.php

There is a section on adding variety to the wood planks as well.


(Thanks Yves!)

Thanks Rodney for the info.



I had a feeling that was the answer. It was a shot in the dark.
But I do have other methods to get the look I wanted. I was hoping there was a quick method.





Yes links that are not dead.
This will be very helpful. Thank you.

Off hand
How do you fix the material to the object so you can copy and move the object to a new position or rotation with out having the underlying material change. Or do you have to set the translation and rotation every time you copy and move the objects in the “model mode”. Since I have trim work around the room to do?

For your random tiles. here is how I would approach that:

I would try to build a hierarchy of checkers. Each child checker being half the scale of the higher one. Maybe 3 or 4 deep or more. At leaf checkers, use a set of noises to add variety. If done right, you should get that random effect.

I sort of went with a straight forward approach. I made a grid of splines and match the grid up to it. Then made some groups and changed the translation "Y"and attribute "Diffuse Falloff". And it did the trick.

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The back splash tiles where small enough I did not need to randomize them.

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You can also check out the Bitmap Plus texture plugin. It has the ability to randomize tiled decals. I don't know the link on how to use the plugin though. Hopefully someone will post a link.

I did a quick test creating tiles with color and displacement maps for the grooves, and a material for the tiles. Here's a screen shot. I'll post the prj if you want, though it looks like you have it under control.

Looks really nice Gerry

Defiantly more detailed then what I needed.

But one problem. I was trying to get rid of the underling pattern that the material system makes. But I think I have enough options to choose from depending on the situation. But post it any way.


New problem

I’ve applied the wood material to some trim work. But when I move the board the wood patter maintains a globe position. Is there a way to lock the material to the board in the model mode. Or do you need to rest the wood material translate position if you happen to move it location?

Here is an example.

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Move the board an inch or two over and you get this.

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GLobal Axis OFF should stop that. But that's the default anyway.

Is there more to this model than the one part you are moving? perhaps the material is applied to a group that is not actually moving with the part.

Here's the zipped prj. If you don't want the material pattern you could just create something in Photoshop as part of the color map.

Global Axis is OFF. But I may have found why it set to 0,0,0 or the Global Axis point. The "Transform" on the Material has no option to turn it off or to "not set". So unless someone made a plug-in to auto set these values I will have to do it manually. Unless someone knows a trick around it.

Here's a simple test case that is definitely following the model

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try rendering it and see if it sticks for you.

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Not in model mode - that's the way it's supposed to work for materials - and yes you would need to reset the translate positions if you move the model (in modeling mode window). That's the way most material mapping works. Same for decals.

The material, or a decal will stick when you move it (re-position) in the chor. As Rob, Gerry pointed out.

Ah, I missed that model mode part, sorry.

And I take that statement back as well - If you decal the model in modeling mode - and then move the model in modeling mode - the decal will stick (move with the patches). Most materials (depending on what they are) will not.

Thank Nancy that answered that question. It least I know to get the model where I want it before adding the material.


On the other question is there a plug-in that will automatically add a set of values from a group to a material as you add them.

Like adding the group’s pivot to the material “transform” “translate” as you add them.

But I think I know the answer.

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Not that I am aware of.

I have not found anything ether. So unless someone pops up with a plug-in or is willing to give it a try I think all of my question are answered.
Thank.

I'm back with another question.

I have made a basic wood material. And it looks OK for trim work with some adjustments to rotation. But on large flat boards the grain is obviously to straight. I have tried some combinations of turbulence on the material with no luck. Any suggestions on how to make the wood grain a little wavy so it looks like a normal board or a piece of plywood?


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turbulence IS the way to make patterns less regular.

Is your turbulence doing nothing or just not enough?

I haven't found a way to add turbulence so the long grain of the wood would be made less straight. I have tried a couple of turbulence in a few spots but it ether did nothing or made a mess of the wood grain.

I am tring to make the long grain look more like this.
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Real life curvy wood grains happen because the wood has been sliced at a certain angle.


In CG, the placement of the material on the object has a lot to do with it

Download this PRJ.

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Look at the settings of the Spherical combiner and the turbulence added to it. These aren't necessarily ideal. I just tried a few until i got something going.

fBM is NOT necessarily the best turbulence, i just picked it quick.

I made the colors black and white for clarity, not because they look like wood.


Then look at the chor.

I've animated the translation of the material so you could see how it changes the appearance of the grain. Normally you would make these settings in the model. I did it in the chor so you could see it change.

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When the side of the block is cutting thru the center of the material the lines are very straight. As the side is cutting thru larger and larger rings the pattern of the turbulence gets wilder. From 3:00 to 4:00 the center of the material is very far away so the side is cutting thru nearly flat cross sections of the rings.

Offsetting the material in more than one axis would get a different effect.

angling the material would get different effects.

you can use the SHIFT-Q render to see the material change semi-real-time as you change the settings.


Try one of the wood materials from the CD and test out different translations and angles for the material.

O.K. I gave it a try but it did not do any better then what I have tried before.

Changing the translations and angles on the groups seems to do better then the existing set of turbulence. I do know what kind of turbulence I need to make it work. But non of the existing turbulence in AM is set up to do it. Do you know if there is other turbulence plug-ins out there?

here's oak.mat from the CD dropped on a cube

translated a bit, scaled, tilted....

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tell me in what ways this is not what you are trying to get

On a ply-wood board or wide piece of wood the grain shows up as a consistent oval shape.
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It dose not look to natural on a wide piece.

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I did this quick an dirty in my paint program so its not that great. But it is more irregular like natural wood.

The plug-in I was hoping to find would do something like this to one of the axis.
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Add a couple of bulges or wave to material and adding one of the other turbulence would give a more natural look. That is if there is a plug-in that dose this.

any better?

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Whats the setting on that one.
I think if you make the Y scale longer you may be in the ballpark.

I'm going to sleep so no rush.

I forgot to save that tweak but here's one very similar you can play with.

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If you need something that follows a specific pattern you may have to paint it and apply it as a decal.

You must be very willing to experiment when using complex combiner materials. Try, try, try, and try again, because placement, scaling, rotation and tweaking parameters are key to getting the most out of a material on a particular mesh.

I think this will do. I will try and tweak it a little more and see what I come up with.

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Boy you are not kidding. It will take some time to get my head rapped around the combiner.

Right now I have a stair case to complete but when I get back to the doors I will post a pic

I would highly recommend the Mastering Materials cd's from Anzovin Studios. Though I think it was Rusty who pointed out that he was less impressed with it than other training cd's from them, I learned a ton of stuff and really began to understand materials for the first time after watching the videos.