Obj Attribute not working in texture

[Tom W.]

Can anyone explain to me why this texture, when applied to an object, doesn't pick up the colour I specify in the Attributes palette?

 

I think this is a default texture in the libraries somewhere.

 

I have other Obj Attribute textures using Plastic Reflectivity + they work fine. And what's weird is that if I use the button in the OIP to edit the texture the object shows up with the correct colour in the preview:

 

But not when I return to the design space:

 

Anyone else noticing this or got any ideas? I will try in VW2021 + see if it's the same...

[Kevin Allen]

can you post the texture file?

[Tom W.]

Many thanks Kevin 

 

Obj Attr Test.vwx

[Andy Broomell]

Not working for me either. My guess is that it's a bug.

[Kevin Allen]

I think the issue is the black in the reflectivity.

[Tom W.]

Ok I don't really understand metal reflectivity very well but I've checked some other metal textures I have + there the colour is generated in the Metallic shader whilst the Color shader is always set to black. So I guess this is just how metal textures are created + therefore aren't suitable for control by Obj Attribute...?

 

I checked VW2021 + VW2020 + was the same

[Andy Broomell]

I'd say it's a bug because if you set the Color Shader directly to a color you DO get colored results, but if you set it to Object Attribute and set the same color on the object itself, you don't get the same result. Therefore something isn't working consistently.

[Tom W.]

Thanks for testing! But this has got me wondering how these things work. I've gone through a load of metal textures I inherited from a Jim Wilson training video + in all cases the Color shader is set to black + the colour of the texture (i.e. its appearance: red, blue, grey, copper, bronze, etc) is determined by the Color parameter in the Metallic shader. So I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to make red, blue, green, etc metal-effect textures setting the colour in the Color shader instead i.e. the way it would work using Obj Attribute... What would I make the colour for the Metallic shader? White I guess? I need to do some testing... But basically I've always been a bit confused about what colour to set in the reflectivity shader + this has made me more confused! 

 

But aside from this, I think you're right: it's not working consistently + strange how the obj attribute colour shows up in the edit preview so must be a bug. Just need to check what a metal-effect texture made this way would look like though... I'm hesitant to deviate from the Jim W. model!

[zoomer]

5 hours ago, Tom W. said:

+ there the colour is generated in the Metallic shader whilst the Color shader is always set to black. So I guess this is just how metal textures are created + therefore aren't suitable for control by Obj Attribute...?

 

 

 

Yes, Metals in Physically Based Rendering (like in Reality) have no Diffuse Color,

like Dielectrics have, just Reflection.

 

Metals either reflect Light, or they will just absorb it and convert it to heat.

Light can't enter their surface. Which it does for Dielectrics, where Light will be

spread in all directions > Diffuse Color.

 

 

4 hours ago, Tom W. said:

So I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to make red, blue, green, etc metal-effect textures setting the colour in the Color shader instead i.e. the way it would work using Obj Attribute...

 

Mostly such special effects on (over) Metals like anodization are oxide Layers,

which are no more Metals but dielectrics and have a Diffuse Color appearance again.

[Tom W.]

7 hours ago, zoomer said:

 

 

Yes, Metals in Physically Based Rendering (like in Reality) have no Diffuse Color,

like Dielectrics have, just Reflection.

 

Metals either reflect Light, or they will just absorb it and convert it to heat.

Light can't enter their surface. Which it does for Dielectrics, where Light will be

spread in all directions > Diffuse Color.

 

 

 

Mostly such special effects on (over) Metals like anodization are oxide Layers,

which are no more Metals but dielectrics and have a Diffuse Color appearance again.

 

Very informative thank you!

[Kevin Allen]

23 hours ago, Tom W. said:

metal textures I inherited from a Jim Wilson

Somewhere along the way, the metal shader was refined.

[Tom W.]

These are they:

[Kevin Allen]

I think I have this file, but I don't recall how/when these were made

 

[Tom W.]

I found the videos. 'Rendering for Success' 2016

 

 

[Andy Broomell]

Because it seems relevant, here's a chart I once made of the default "metal" textures that come in the Vectorworks default content. I use this when choosing a metal since the Texture thumbnails in the Resource Manager are worthless. (Click to see full)

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Andy Broomell

[Tom W.]

3 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

thumbnails in the Resource Manager are worthless

 

It would be really good to have a more sophisticated way of controlling how resources are displayed in the thumbnails (or RM preview pane). It would be great to have the option to display custom-created images such as yours above for individual resources.

[Kevin Allen]

14 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

here's a chart I once made

 

I have often wished I was this organized. Frankly this kind of thing should be looped into the software help and linked in the dialogs. Noise bumps are another area where it takes a fair bit of hunting to understand.