Rendering an EAP

[willofmaine]

How do I get the "grain" of a texture (the vertical orientation of its image) to run parallel to the path of an extrude along path, on ALL faces (except the ends) of the EAP? Changing the mapping's rotation 90 degrees doesn't help since the grain's orientation varies on different faces....

Thanks, Will

[michaelk]

Does Map Type: Auto Align Plane do it?

[CipesDesign]

Will, I think what you're asking for is something like the attached, where the grain of the texture is 'normal' to the path of the EAP, but the ends are different. Since there is no way to independently control the end texture of an EAP, you will probably need to model separate end caps. Then you can control the texture orientation on those caps. Not difficult as you already have the piece to make the caps, it's the "Profile" object...

[willofmaine]

Actually, it's not the ends I'm concerned about so much as the rest of the EAP; see attached.

The frame on the left is the EAP. The frame on the right is three solid subtractions (mitered extrudes), which allows independent rendering of the jamb and head pieces (even so, the head piece still has the grain the wrong way on its top).

Unfortunately, three solid subtractions is, of course, a lot more work than a single EAP, both to create in the first place, and to edit down the road.

[CipesDesign]

Yes, I see now what you're after. The same problem exists if you use Wood Textures on any millwork or trim in VW's. The only way to get it exactly right is to use three (or more) objects. And I guess they would need to Solid Subs due to the mitered corners. For sure this is a weakness (and it's been like this forever). It would be super cool if VW's/RW's had yet another texture orientation: Normal to longest dimension along each segment.

I did mess around with it a little and found that I can get acceptable results by using Cylinder or Sphere Mapping with most of the Wood Textures. Of course you will lose a little of the grainy-directionality of the texture that way, but for (my) practical purposes it's an okay trade-off...