[Tea_Bag]

Hi,

Very Well Done NL The Solidworks Plugin is really good! I haven't used any plugins since the first RC always used Studio and today I've been playing with the solidworks plugin for the first time and Love it very user friendly and looks good IMHO - One question tho UV Mapping that was normally done for me in studio, how do I change the uv's in solidworks (scale etc)

Thank you!

[JDHill]

Hi Tea_Bag,

Working with textures is tricky in SW, expecially when the plugin gets involved. Firstly, the plugin only has access to the 'regular' SW texture data - I mean, it doesn't know if you've done something with another plugin, such as PhotoWorks. So that means, if you:

• > select an entity (i.e. face, body, etc.)
  > right-click
  > select Appearance
  > select Texture

You will be using the 'regular' SW texture-editor for the selected entity, and this is the information the plugin has access to. There is only one control in this page which will affect textures in an explicitly-assigned Maxwell Material: the rotation slider. If no actual Maxwell Material is assigned, the plugin will read the path, scale, and rotation defined in this page to generate a generic textured material in the MXS...and these aren't bad, but they are not generally going to be as good as something you've made with MXED. So, if the rotation slider is the only control you use in this page, how do you scale? Similar to Studio's MXED, you access the plugin's texture-editor by way of the Material Editor:

• > open the Material Editor
  > select (or create) a Material
  > select (for example) a BSDF
  > right-click the button for this BSDF's Reflectance 0° texture

This will open the texture editor, which is a slide-out on the Material Editor, rather than a separate window with OK/Cancel behavior. There are not OK/Cancel actions because they are not necessary - changes to the texture's scale (i.e. Tile X/Y) will be visible in the viewport as they are made. Note: I mean they will be changed in real time if you have 'Enable Viewport Materials' activated - it takes some processing to do this, so you can turn it off - the 'Enable Viewport Materials' toggle is in the Database Manager's toolbar.

In case you wonder why you need to adjust texture scale in a different place than rotation, the answer is: Maxwell (as you likely know) has no rotation parameter like SW. I could add one to the plugin, but it would be less flexible - as it is done with scale, rotation would then have to be adjusted on a per-texture and not a per-object basis.

So to sum this up, there are two ways to texture objects using the plugin:

1. by way of an explicitly-assigned Maxwell Material

• - only the texture's rotation is taken from the SW texture editor settings
  - texture path, scale, offset (not visible in the viewport), and channel are taken from the plugin's texture editor, on a per-texture basis

2. by assigning no Material and using the SW material interface

• - texture path, scale, and rotation are taken from the SW settings
  - the surface finish of the material is taken from the SW 'color' settings
  - the plugin obeys its 'Export SW Multi-Materials' user-preference

About the last item, by enabling that option, you are asking the plugin to do what very well may be a great deal of material-generating, entity-assignment checking, and material-cross-referencing...depending on the number of faces in the geometry. So use it only if you need to.

There are more details in the help file about the various controls and features of the plugin's Material Editor.

Cheers,

JD

[Tea_Bag]

Thanks JDHill for the in-depth Information - I'm now able to do my textures scales!

[Tea_Bag]

I'm Finding it really hard to get a precise texture placement for decals/clipmaps as I cant see any change in the viewport when offseting the texture using the offset x and y in the material editor.The scale settings work just fine. Refresh viewport materials dont work for me?

[JDHill]

Sorry, but SolidWorks doesn't have any texture offset parameter that the plugin can use to show you the effect of those parameters in the SW viewport. I know it doesn't help alot, but at least the plugin can show your offset in the texture preview window. Btw...that's also the reason Tile X/Y are tied together when viewport Materials are enabled...if you disable them, you can adjust X independent from Y - but you can't see it in the viewport.