Better Looking Wood Textures

[Bruce Kieffer]

I realize that applying a wood texture to an object is not the same as real wood. The texture is wrapped, and it lacks end and edge grain details. Is there anyway to improve the look of wood applied textures to make them appear more realistic?

[grant_PD]

Reflections make a big difference in rendering realistic textures. Remember that there must be something to reflect in order for reflection to appear, ie. don't render in a void.

Having a really good image of the wood is key as well. The arrowway textures are not bad.

[PVA - Admin]

That and a proper bump/displacement map to give it the contouring you expect from wood and to keep it from looking like smooth plastic. Many of these have the base image maps along with the bump or displacement map you can play with to see if you can get the effect you're looking for:

http://resources.maxwellrender.com/search.php#page=4&mode=1&category=&id=2152&search=wood&v1=0&v2=0&tipo=

[Bruce Kieffer]

Jim,

How is the bump map used with the Maxwell Render tiles? How do I bring the bump map info into Renderworks? I know how to import the tile image.

[PVA - Admin]

When youre editing the texture, set "Bump" to Image, then it will let you pick an image similar to the way the regular image based texture does.

Sometimes they come with a bump and/or a displacement map as well, its good to give both a look to see what works and what doesn't.