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Slab directional texture issues - please help


Marshallae

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Hi all,

 

I've created some bench seats using VW slabs.  When applying a texture for rendering it seems that there is no way to change the rotation of textures (other than changing the texture itself).  For the uprights of the bench the render goes in the right direction (i.e. wooden slats running vertically). I want the horizontal ones to run in a different direction though. (attached image shows the current state issue).

 

I've got a few of these benches, each set at different angles (they all face into a central focal point but from different point). SURELY the answer isn't that I have to create 10 versions a texture each with different rotation angle and apply it to the different faces of the slab?! 🤯 VW can't be that dumb right!?

 

Before someone suggests using extrudes, I can't do that either as they don't solid fill on a top plan, which is needed for this plan (again, why VW, why!! 🙄)

Direcional render issues example.png

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14 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

Maybe something like this?

This was created with two sweeps placed in an Auto Hybrid (to get the Top/Plan graphics).

 

image.png

 

Curved Bench.vwx

 

Hi Matt,

 

Thanks for that. That does indeed look like what I'm trying to create. Just had a look in VW and it seems that slabs cannot be converted to auto-hybrids, is that correct?  If so will I have to create everything from fresh to use these?

 

When you say you used two sweeps, can I just check, did you draw the side view of the bench, then sweep that through x degrees? Then presumably needed to rotate that 90 degrees to get it to stand up in the right direction?

 

It would be great to see the workflow steps you used so that I don't end up doing this in a really inefficient way.

 

Thanks!

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better to start again + not use slab tool.

 

Draw rectangle or poly in front view then run sweep command in top/plan view. Use locus to set the correct rotation point. 

 

See video:

 

 

Rectangle/poly will become a sweep object. If you have two sweeps you'd probably use 'Add Solids' to combine them into a Solid Addition. Then finally to get the correct 2D look you'd use 'Create Auto Hybrid' to turn it into an Auto Hybrid object. But you can double click to go back into each stage of the object to edit it if necessary.

 

As an alternative final step, if you have several identical benches in the file, save it as a hybrid symbol + set the top/plan look of it in the 2D component of the symbol

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Hi Matt,

 

Thanks for taking the time to do this video - much appreciated and gives me a way to do what I need to for this specific project.

 

That being said, it feels rather clunky overall to create something relatively simple, which could be done a lot more efficiently if we could only rotate the direction of textures on a slab.  I'm not sure how much influence you have over future development of VW as a staff member, but if you can feedback the request to be able to rotate textures on slabs then it would be hugely appreciated. It would be such a useful feature!

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@Marshallae  if you prefer the slab workflow, you could always make your bench seats from Floor Objects instead. You can rotate the textures on Floors + they will display as solid in 2D. I'd personally do it Matt's way as you have more editing control down the line should you want to change anything + not any slower.

That being said I obviously agree totally that slabs should be able to have their textures rotated + this is the perfect opportunity whilst he's with us to ask @Matt Panzer why they lack this feature? Slabs have a raft of powerful features that come into play when used in other ways.

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For Vectorworks Fundamental users Auto Hybrid is not an option however you can always manually draw your 2d representation in Top/Plan View as Screen Plane objects then select both the 2d and 3d geometry and Modify>Create Symbol to generate a 2d/3d Hybrid Symbol that behaves much the same in 2d/3d as an Auto Hybrid object.

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14 hours ago, Tom W. said:

That being said I obviously agree totally that slabs should be able to have their textures rotated + this is the perfect opportunity whilst he's with us to ask @Matt Panzer why they lack this feature?

Interestingly I just learnt (thanks to @michaelk) that if you run Convert to Group on a slab you find it's actually made out of floor objects, which makes it even more confusing why it doesn't share the same functionality in regard to texture mapping??

 

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15 hours ago, Tom W. said:

@Marshallae  if you prefer the slab workflow, you could always make your bench seats from Floor Objects instead. You can rotate the textures on Floors + they will display as solid in 2D. I'd personally do it Matt's way as you have more editing control down the line should you want to change anything + not any slower.

That being said I obviously agree totally that slabs should be able to have their textures rotated + this is the perfect opportunity whilst he's with us to ask @Matt Panzer why they lack this feature? Slabs have a raft of powerful features that come into play when used in other ways.

Thanks, I've just tried it using the floor method and this works nicely.  Seems a lot faster to me for most use cases.

 

The issue I had with using the sweeps etc, is that whilst they are fine in a blank document, when you are trying to use those in the middle of a busy model, flipping between front view (with lots of things in the way) and top view etc it becomes rather harder to be accurate. Whereas using floor method I can get the dimensions right in top view much more easily, so thanks for the tip.

 

Edit - just noticed one thing which makes floor method less appealing. It seems that on a curved object, making it into a floor loses the smoothness of the curve, and instead has some quite severe corners along the curve line compared with slabs which seem to cope well with curves (see attached pic).

floor vs slab.png

Edited by Marshallae
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By way of an update on this, I've ended up using one of the library assets (Site-Furn_DuMor Bench), an existing curved bench, which I've then edited the textures of for wood.  Overall looks nicer as it has the steel sides and is generally a bit more architectural than the blocky bench I originally had.  Here you can see it rendered in Enscape, with the correct directional wood grain.

bench in Enscape.png

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Ok great.

Not relevant now of course but on the faceted nature of the floor object I think if you go to VW Preferences > 3D tab > 3D Conversion Resolution you should be able to remedy this

Also like I said earlier + bcd as well, something like this you're generally best making into a hybrid symbol so you get the 2D look you want + can easily be inserted into the drawing multiple times + can be saved in favourites for future use. Which is basically what you've ended up doing anyway by using a pre-existing symbol

Glad you found a solution that works for you

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I thought I better check what I said about removing the facets on the curved floor object + I was wrong sorry: you can smooth the curve so much but not entirely. The blue object on left is a floor, the yellow one an extrude. I had no idea floors had this behaviour. This is with Open GL Detail + 3D conversion resolution both set to very high

1498171647_Screenshot2020-11-26at13_29_57.thumb.png.931434b7cc48525cb7935722c38f2f07.png

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4 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

I thought I better check what I said about removing the facets on the curved floor object + I was wrong sorry: you can smooth the curve so much but not entirely. The blue object on left is a floor, the yellow one an extrude. I had no idea floors had this behaviour. This is with Open GL Detail + 3D conversion resolution both set to very high

1498171647_Screenshot2020-11-26at13_29_57.thumb.png.931434b7cc48525cb7935722c38f2f07.png

Interesting.  I've not had much cause for using floor objects previously, but it's useful to know this for future reference. As you say, odd modelling behaviour. Floor does seem fine if using it for flat edged shapes, but perhaps worth avoiding for curved surfaces if a smooth finish is desired.  Again more good reason why they should just allow slabs to rotate and scale textures, then all these issues go away!

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On 11/25/2020 at 11:50 AM, Marshallae said:

Thanks for taking the time to do this video - much appreciated and gives me a way to do what I need to for this specific project.

 

That being said, it feels rather clunky overall to create something relatively simple, which could be done a lot more efficiently if we could only rotate the direction of textures on a slab.  I'm not sure how much influence you have over future development of VW as a staff member, but if you can feedback the request to be able to rotate textures on slabs then it would be hugely appreciated. It would be such a useful feature!

 

On 11/25/2020 at 12:30 PM, Tom W. said:

@Marshallae  if you prefer the slab workflow, you could always make your bench seats from Floor Objects instead. You can rotate the textures on Floors + they will display as solid in 2D. I'd personally do it Matt's way as you have more editing control down the line should you want to change anything + not any slower.

That being said I obviously agree totally that slabs should be able to have their textures rotated + this is the perfect opportunity whilst he's with us to ask @Matt Panzer why they lack this feature? Slabs have a raft of powerful features that come into play when used in other ways.

 

I don't know if there are any technical details of why we cannot rotate textures on slab objects but we do recognize this as a needed feature.

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