Stainless steel texture

[Elphaba]

I am having the toughest time with creating a good stainless steel texture. If I use the brushed reflectivity shader the grain is almost invisible. If I use a stainless steel image for the color, there is a grid pattern because the image is tiled. Any suggestions? The stainless steel I need is the kind on foodservice equipment and work tables, as accurate as possible. (I'm using Vectorworks with Renderworks 2014 and for some reason my libraries seem to have disappeared.)

[CipesDesign]

Try texture Metal Stainless Steel Brushed. In order for this to look real you will need a) lighting (at least one interior light) and b) to use Final Quality Renderworks, Or Realistic Interior Final (RW Style). In Open GL, or any lesser render modes it just looks gray...

[Elphaba]

Thanks, but that doesn't seem to work either. I finally figured out how to get to the 2012 libraries. I used the "metal stainless steel brushed" and I have one point light in an enclosed space, my indirect lighting is set to 2 bounces and I have the environment lighting set to HDRI White. Attached is what it looks like using Final Quality Renderworks. The Realistic Interior Final looks the same. (In the attached picture, the dark gray is how the metal stainless steel brushed is showing up. The shiny metal is chrome which looks pretty good, but I really need the bulk of the equipment to have the grain of stainless.)

[CipesDesign]

You might try messing with the texture itself. Perhaps change the reflectivity, bump, etc... Sorry I can't any more help without having your file to examine.

You could also try calling text support (you are geographically close to them).

Good Luck!

[Elphaba]

That is the problem, I've spent a huge amount of time adjusting the texture, changing the reflectivity, bump, color, and image. Attached is the best I have so far, but I need photorealistic. I was hoping maybe someone knew of a texture data base or something.

[grant_PD]

You're not going to get a good brushed texture out of the texturing of renderworks. You could probably get a good approximation by using photographic bitmap textures and applying a blurred reflection to them. But there are not enough controls in VW/RW to create a procedural shader.

[Monadnoc]

I've dealt with the same issue. Here is a brushed stainless steel texture I came up with a while ago based on some settings I dug up on this forum, plus a little tweaking. I made two versions, one photo based (lower quality, for quicker renders and export ability) and one that is procedural based (higher quality, takes longer to render and can't be exported to other programs). I also couldn't decide on the perfect tint, so I tried blue, grey, and a combo of both. Here's an image showing the blue-grey version. The vwx file has all four textures in it. Version 2011.

It is far from perfect, but (to me) it looks better than the brushed SS Steel that comes with VW.

And the procedural uses Blur, so that should be turned on in your lighting options (actually the photo based one does too, but you can turn that off for increased render speed - I usually do).

HTH

[img:left]https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=11707&filename=Stainless%20Steel%20texture%20300.png[/img]

Edited January 14, 2015 by Monadnoc

[Monadnoc]

And here are the vwx files. The first is a cleaned up one with just the textures, the second one is the scene file, for light settings, etc.

Sorry, the files are way too huge to post - 11 and 19 mgs, and all that is in it is 4 textures. A little ridiculous. I will try and post them to Drop Box when I have the time to figure out their Public folder.

Sorry.

[Monadnoc]

This should work:

Just the textures:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76888425/SS_Textures_v2011.vwx

The scene file:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76888425/Stainless%20Steel%20texture.vwx

The scene file appliances are all set to the "grey" version of the SS material (which still seems a little too blue - you may want to tweak it more). To compare the different textures just change the "Other" texture in the class "Finish-Metal-Stainless Steel BRUSHED". All stainless steel components are set to that class.

Let me know if the links don't work (first time trying this in Dropbox).

[Monadnoc]

Here's the image with the "grey" stainless texture applied, just for comparisons. The hood and range top are a little more grey, but the fronts still seem a little too blue. I think the reflections, lighting, and angle of view effect it heavily. They will no doubt need some tweaking but at the time I just needed something fast...

[img:left]https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=11708&filename=Stainless%20Steel%20grey%20texture%20300.png[/img]

Edited January 14, 2015 by Monadnoc

[Monadnoc]

I am at my limit with Dropbox so I've removed the two previous files. I did manage to get the file with just the textures down to under 2 mgs. I did it by deleting the photo version texture and the blue-grey procedural (which was messed up anyway when I went to check things out in detail this morning. It actually was set to use the photo too. If you already downloaded it, I would delete that texture from the file. It is redundant).

Here is the vex 2011 file with just two procedural SS Textures (blueish and grayish). You will probably want to tweak the grey so it is a little more grayish).

I would delete the Dropbox post but apparently it has been too long and I can't do that. Perhaps a Moderator would be so kind as to delete it for me.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Monadnoc