Wood Grain Material

[Poochyricko]

Hi all

I have an interest project coming up at work and I need some advice and info from you guys. The project involves a lot of bespoke parts and each one to have a certain wood grain applied it from the customers choice of wood.

What i need to know firstly is: is it possibly to transfer the specific grain from a piece of wood into a format that i can use in my renderings? And how would i go about doing this i.e would i take a photo of the wood and then sew together the grain to create a texture that would wrap around my model??

How do you guys go about creating your own textures and maps to use in keyshot. I mainly used solidworks and keyshot together so its a new area for me in creating my own materials and i need to learn how.

Any help or godly wisdom would be much appreciated 

[Speedster]

Hi there!

Others will pipe in as well, but here's a few tips to get you started- hope they help.  Wood grain can be tricky, but it's easy if you follow certain steps.

Most important is that you "map" your SolidWorks (and other apps) model to prepare the surfaces for materials in KeyShot, specifically to define the grain direction.  You mention "bespoke", so I presume you mean radial spokes?   The color mapped screenshot below illustrates what's needed, and the rendered image shows the result.  The grain on the wheel spokes must run parallel to the spoke, so I mapped each spoke a different color.  Ditto the cab and truck bed panels.  Now, in KS, you apply the wood material and use the angle setting in Textures to align the grain.  You can copy/paste to the opposite spoke, as in my case, or change other parameters to suit, as long as each spoke is a different mapped color.  I always "over-map", just in case!

If you need to create a mitered corner, like a picture frame, use the "Split Line" tool to demark the joint, then map all associated faces to suit.

KeyShot ships with many good woods, and each can be tweaked.  But quite often you'll need a specific wood.  You need .jpeg's, and they are easy to obtain.  First go to www.cgtextures.com, the most important web asset for KeyShooters.  Free (you have to sign up), with a maximum of 15 MB downloads per 24 hours, or an unlimited Premium membership.  Search for the appropriate wood(s).  You may have to tweak them in Photoshop (or other) to create a "Seamless Tiling" image, something I've never been good at yet.

Search the web for good manufacturer's samples.  Tough, as most are either too small, or are watermarked.

I often borrow samples from our local flooring company and scan them, which is also best if your client has a specific wood or woods to use.

You may need "normal" or bump maps.  You can fake it very well in KS by using the same image as a bump, but leave "use normal map" unchecked.  I use FilterForge to create excellent normal maps, in which case you do check the use normal box.

This should get you started, and others will help as well!

Bill G
www.GouldStudios.com

[rkulshrestha]

Absolutely one of the best resources for textures

http://resources.maxwellrender.com/search.php#page=1&mode=1&search=wood&v1=0&v2=0&tipo=

If you dont find it here, you will have to photograph the texture then use a program like Genetica to make a seamless texture.

Shivani

[jhiker]

Absolutely one of the best resources for textures

http://resources.maxwellrender.com/search.php#page=1&mode=1&search=wood&v1=0&v2=0&tipo=

If you dont find it here, you will have to photograph the texture then use a program like Genetica to make a seamless texture.

Shivani

Forgive my ignorance. I downloaded some of the metal textures from there to try out. The zipped files contain a selection of JPG and PNG files as well as 'MXM' which I'm assuming you can't use directly. Sometimes there are IOR files too.
How do you decide which of the JPG and/or PNG to use for the colour/texture/bump maps in KShot?
Thanks

[Speedster]

If its a .jpeg or .png you can use them directly in KeyShot.  There will often be a normal or bump included.  But most metals from Maxwell will be their material, without images, and not usable.  When downloading, be very careful about naming, as most are somewhat generic, like "metal" or something.  Be cautious, download to a separate folder, extract and rename, before dropping into the KS Resources.  The majority of metals you might use are already in KeyShot, and are easily tweaked. 
Bill G

[Poochyricko]

Hey there

Thanks for that speedster, really good reply with loads of info that I am going to check out next week. I'm looking forward to it now I know it is possible and there's some help on the matter on the forums.

As for the website for the resources that's awesome, I will defiantly make good use of that site and have already bookmarked it

I will let you know how i get on over the coming days and weeks

Cheers

Patrick