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Advice re assigning Hardscape textures


Tom W.

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Can someone help explain what the best way to set a texture on a slab type hardscape is? I can generally get what I want but only after going around in circles, setting the texture in a variety of different places until eventually, more through luck by judgement, the chosen texture decides to apply itself. A texture can be set in the slab component settings, either directly or by class; in the hardscape settings, either directly or by class; then there’s the render tab in the O.I.P. No amount of messing around with these settings seems to bring me closer to understanding the object’s behaviour so would really appreciate some guidance. It would be really useful to be able to quickly switch between different textures to see which one is going to look best but in my hands it takes ages + is v frustrating…

Thanks 

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I use Slab Styles to control the display of textures, using the components within a style to govern the display.

If I need a different texture for a particular hardscape, I change it in the Slab Style.

I don't bother with using the class the hardscape object is placed on to control texture, rather use classes to organize the objects.

 

The problem and benefit of Vectorworks is there are a variety of ways to do things.  Complex objects like hardscapes and walls begin to lose their utility if one does not create them in with a consistent strategy.  I use the method described because I can switch between construction assemblies quickly by selecting slab styles rather than edit.  I have a reasonable expectation that my sections and reports will be correct if I follow the process.  The minute I start deviating from a chosen process is when the problems creep in.

 

Hope it helps.

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Hi Jeff thanks for your help + apologies for not saying so sooner but I've been messing around with the tool all this time trying to get my head around these display settings...! I think I'm getting somewhere but what I don't really understand is why we have the 'Main Texture' setting in the Hardscape Object Settings. If you have a 3D slab, styled or unstyled, in order for the Main Texture setting to have any effect (as far as I can tell) you have to choose None for the texture in the Slab Component Settings. Unless you do this, the component texture will override whatever texture is set in the Hardscape Settings (which is also shown in the Render tab of the O.I.P.). This was a major source of confusion for me because you could have two different textures selected simultaneously, in different areas of the settings, with no indication that one had been rendered redundant by the other. The texture setting in the Hardscape Object Settings dialog + in the O.I.P. is more visible than the texture in the Slab Component Settings but this texture is not the one that is active (I mean that if you look at the object settings the first texture settings you see are not correct + you have to dig deeper into the settings to see the actual texture that's active, by going into the slab component settings, which is confusing). Under what circumstances would you choose to to set the component texture to none + set the texture in the hardscape settings instead? The hardscape texture will only ever apply to all the components at once so if you have more than one component you'd still need to set the textures for the lower ones via the Slab Component Settings. It just seems unnecessarily complicated + confusing.

 

Have I got this right or have I totally misunderstood what's happening?

 

Even with the component texture set to none + controlling the display only in the hardscape settings, I am still finding occasions where I've got one texture shown in the Hardscape Object Settings + a different one in the O.I.P. with only one of them applied to the model obviously...

 

The other thing that I have a lot of trouble with + which I forgot to mention in my first post is textures displaying stretched sideways across the surface of the object rather than flat as they should be. It seems to happen completely randomly + the means of correcting it seems completely random as well. I can have a texture displaying wrongly, replace the style for a different one, then replace it back again to the original style + then this time it displays correctly.

 

It just feels there are lots of things with this tool that behave erratically + that I'm not fully in control of, unlike slab tool + wall tool which I've never had any issues with. Is it just me or does anyone else feel the same way???

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

The other thing that I have a lot of trouble with + which I forgot to mention in my first post is textures displaying stretched sideways across the surface of the object rather than flat as they should be. It seems to happen completely randomly + the means of correcting it seems completely random as well. I can have a texture displaying wrongly, replace the style for a different one, then replace it back again to the original style + then this time it displays correctly.

 I can't really comment on a lot of the other questions, but this is probably a texture mapping issue. Textures can be mapped multiple different ways. Depending on what results you need there might only be one that gives the desired result. The image below shows a brick texture on a cube with each of the different mappings. While the "front" look ok in each instance (well Sphere is at the wrong scale) the Top is very far off for most instanced and Plane is off for the Right side also.

 

I believe the mapping can be set in the Render tab of the OIP or in the Class if you are texturing by class.

 

image.thumb.png.e89deaea858ee39dd7da956bc2e0f820.png

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Thanks @jeff prince and @Pat Stanford I looked at all those other posts they were really helpful. I'm glad I wasn't the only one finding Hardscapes confusing/frustrating. But now that I'm following your advice to focus only on the slab component settings for the textures + ignore everything else - and use the texture mapping settings in the O.I.P. to resolve any display issues - I am getting what I want every time + with minimum of fuss. I am much happier all round thank you!

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  • 1 month later...

Hi again guys.

I was browsing through existing topics before creating a new one regarding Hardscape settings. I decided to post it here, maybe you will be able to advise.

I want my Hardscape to get the Fill attribute by class (i.e. the class the Hardscape is assigned to). This should apply to both, Main Area and the Border. What is the best way of doing that?

I set the Main Area Class and Border Class to Hardscape Class. I can understand that one may wish to assign different colour to the Border even within the same class, but why there is no choice to choose this parameter by Class as well? Am I wrong thinking that I need to assign the same Background [Border] colour as my Hardscape class to make them the same?

image.thumb.png.8df8aa37e6e37433a793154166831154.png

 

Then, when trying to Eye Drop the attributes, which do I need to select to make the tool copy all the colours from the original Hardscape? I keep getting the border unchanged.

image.thumb.png.244babe6bd16e1101898abf46ce0e74b.png

Any ideas and advice?

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7 hours ago, Michal Zarzecki said:

I want my Hardscape to get the Fill attribute by class (i.e. the class the Hardscape is assigned to). This should apply to both, Main Area and the Border. What is the best way of doing that?

I could be wrong, but I don't think the tool allows you to have the main area and border on the same class without invoking the "background color" fill for borders.  Similarly, if you place the main and border on separate classes, but place the overall hardscape object on the same class as the class defined in the border portion of the hardscape settings, the border reverts to using the background color for the border as defined in the hardscape settings.  It's a strange behavior.  It's like it forces you to have a different background color for borders unless...

 

You create separate classes for the main and border, style those classes as desired, and click 'use at creation'.  Then in the hardscape properties set the main and border areas to refer to these new classes you created.  This will give you independent control over each and you can then set them to be the same if you desire.  You can then place that hardscape on whatever class you want for organizational purposes (so long as it is not the same class used for the border definition) and the hardscape will get the elements' graphic properties from the classes you define in the hardscape properties.

 

Eyedropper doesn't pick up the hardscape setting for the border's background color when explicitly set in the hardscape properties.

I guess that's a feature designed to keep you occupied manually matching hardscape settings across multiple object when you want to change them 🙂

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I installed the 2021 yesterday and used it for the first time today.

Similar as with Hardscape, I couldn't work out what settings of the Eye Dropper to use to pick the new Landscape Area settings (i.e. planting specifically) from one instance to another. That was not a problem in 2020. 

When I tried to adjust the alignment of hatch in the Hardscape object, I couldn't snap to perpendicular point even though I used to have no issue with that before. I am not sure if this is subject to some settings that I need to adjust in 2021. Perhaps I should browse topics related to 2021 - maybe others have similar issues or there might even be answers to some of the issues I came across.

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