[caryjames]

Hi again everyone- here is an issue that I have been running into quite frequently. Why is it that my brushed metal reacts SO differently depending on the curvature of the surface to which it is applied and the direction of the brush finish? I understand that flat surfaces "kill" materials but I am a bit puzzled as to the different effects I am getting. I would like all of the brushed finished to be like the smaller truncated cone but unfortunately they are not.



Here is a screen shot of the material.



Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

[Frances]

This looks like a uv mapping issue. Try enabling Texture mapping in the objects' properties and playing with the different settings.

[ivox3]

If the truncated cone is a single surface(no bottom/top), you can just use the _dir command and just swap out the UV directions. After that you can use the texture mapping controls to refine the texture as Fran noted.

The direction thing happens due to varying methods of object creation. If your astute, ..you can become conscious of the UV direction while making an object and use an appropriate creation method. Or you can forget such nonsense and just slap a texture upon completion and have a look to see what's happening and simply deal with it from that point.

[caryjames]

Hi Guys- Sorry I wasn't clear enough in my description.

I understand how to change the direction of the brushed finish (I have become aware of the ramifications on my render during the modeling stage- often it is easier to extrude a circle for creating a wedding band but now if I know I need the option of showing a client a brushed finish I will always revolve the band), my issue is with the different appearance (i.e. brush thickness) with the differing directions.

I am surprised at the widely varying appearances of the line thickness with the different shapes.

It seems strange that I would have to play with bump and displacement settings for every different surface that I create. I wouldn't think that I would have to recreate the brushed material for every object it would be applied to.

I am going to cross post this to the Material forum to see if any of the folks over there have seen this before.

[ivox3]

Its totally normal. To see how large or small the initial texture is going to be -- take any single surface and turn on the control points. What you don't see is also being 'textured' and this can make the texture appear oversized or stretched. So, depending on whether the object is a trimmed surface or not you'll have varying results. I also have to point out that in the case of those 2 truncated cones -- although they look grossly different in texture, that simply switching the UV direction would bring them a lot closer in proximity.
At which point you could just make some minor adjustments to the tiling in either the U or V direction to have the same look as the smaller one.

In the case of the convex shape with the large texture -- take a look the control points. Is it a revolved object, trimmed sphere ? ..it all makes a difference how the texture is going to appear. With that said, ...it doesn't really matter because from either approach tweaking can be done to get a good result.

It would be nice to think that when we see an mxm simball material that by simply applying the mxm --- voila! ...everything is perfect, but it just doesn't work that way.

[caryjames]

Thanks ivox! I have not had to play around with the UV set before so this was one of those cases where " I know something is wrong but where do I start?"

What do you mean by "To see how large or small the initial texture is going to be -- take any single surface and turn on the control points. What you don't see is also being 'textured' and this can make the texture appear over sized or stretched."? I went back to my model of this scene and turned on the control points in a rendered viewport but don't understand how turning on the control points will allow me to see if a texture is going to be stretched or not.

Too bad about the seeing an mxm simball and applying the mxm . I do not use textures a lot because I usually don't have much need- jewellery designer -- so the UV mapping stuff is something that I have not had to deal with before.