Texture positioning randomization? (realistic textures)
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Actually I guess I'm asking for two things here.
The first is making textures look nice on a single log. Repeated textures are boring and often ugly.
The second is randomizing texture positioning per instance, or making them look good/unique in some way when they're grouped.
I'm not asking to limit the options to just Sketchup.. just basically any 3d program that can read 3ds or Sketchup files, though obviously Sketchup addons or the like would be best.
I am not sure what techniques the "awesome rendered images" we see everywhere use, but surely it's not just the default texture system in Sketchup.
I know several methods that could help but wouldn't know how to easily do it in Sketchup (or any other program):
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Randomized texture start position per component...(an on/off tick, or maybe a "select groups of objects">"randomize texture start position"?)
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Texture tiling. For a wood texture for instance, I'd specify four textures and the renderer would use a random seed to determine which texture to put when tiling. (one random texture per texture-tile) The textures would of course be designed to allow continuity regardless of how they were arranged. I see this method in newer games a lot.
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Texture doodads.. either semi-randomly or algorithmically determined locations for wood doodads placed on top of the texture. (like wood imperfections or rings).
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I appreaciate that more people would like this.
- / 3. You were very very close, but maybe a bit too complex approach.
The secret how renderers do it is "layered materials" and "procedurals". Procedurals are mathematical algorithms for patterns that look for example like clouds, rocks, tiles, giraffe fur etc. Layered materials contain several textures or procedurals that are mixed with masks. Imagine you have two different grass textures. You blend one over the other using a procedural mask which never repeats.
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Hi, check this out:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=23163&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
Here's the final result, straight SketchUp output. Go to the thread for the full info. -
If youve got a suitably large texture i think youd get quite a good 'random' look by rotating each log about its axis, so a different bit of texture is showing on each log.
you could even use a DC, so it automatically rotates itself when you make a copy.
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If finding suitable large texture is difficult, one option is to use procedural textures. Many renderers can use a procedural wood, that picks colours from a texture sample and generate a wood texture. That usually is good enough if you wont do a close up render.
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Aerilius -> I would have considered procedural texture generation more complex than doodads or multiple textures, though.
Ecuadorian's link gives a good tutorial on how to semi-randomize rotation and sizes of the logs, as well as gives a good place for a full log texture.
However.. could anyone recommend a free or trial version of a rendering program that does do procedural wood textures?
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Kerkythea is free and can do procedural textures. It's just up to you how effectively you can create them.
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off topic, but in ecuadorian's picture, how do you get that sky & grass and background?
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The grass is in the Vegetation folder of SketchUp's materials, with a slightly changed color.
The sky is a picture inserted as a background type watermark in the style.
[flash=640,505:h2secodx]http://www.youtube.com/v/ey0sKd5I700&fs=1[/flash:h2secodx]I highly recommend watching all the basic SketchUp tutorials. It shouldn't take more than a day, and will save you months of frustration.
http://sketchup.google.com/training/videos.html -
thanks very much!
i checked out the tutorial and learned the watermark thing - i'm going through sketchup's youtube channel right now and you're right, there's a ton of good info in there
getting back to the picture you posted of the logs, i haven't seen anything so far on making the grass/land an image? watermarks only seem to work for the 'sky' portion of the screen for me. am i missing something?
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Could you give an example?
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yeah, of course!
okay, so in that picture of the logs you posted, you have a nice sky, and the logs themselves are on some grass with some trees in the far background.
it's the grass/trees effect i'm trying to figure out!
when i go to watermarks in styles, it only lets me place the sky. i'm not sure how to get the grass/trees. do you just draw a giant square on the ground and fill it with grass?
hopefully this makes a little more sense. i'm still going through the tutorials (slowly, since i'm at work) and haven't stumbled across this yet.
thanks!
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@davesec said:
do you just draw a giant square on the ground and fill it with grass?
Yes, that's what I did. And the trees are simply part of the background photograph.
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