Custom Materials

[Grumple]

Hi all,

How do I go about creating my own wall material that will render and 'bump' correctly?

I understand this is a fairly advanced topic, but if someone could bullet point the main steps or simply point me in the direction of a good tutorial or video it would be greatly apreciated!

Thanks : )

[patricks]

Have you looked through the Rendering forum? It basically consists of taking an already-defined material render appearance, and modifying it to suit your needs. You can specify a pattern or render image, and then a bump pattern or image to go along with it.

[Grumple]

Rendering forum? Nope! But I shall now : )

It seems there isn't much about on blogs or tutorial sites for this kind of Revit work...

Thanks

[dhurtubise]

Just Duplicate an existing type.
Point to the right image file for the texture and set the appropriate properties.
Do the same for Bump.

[Grumple]

Ok... I've played with this a few times now and think the following is about the right workflow...

1: Find a texture image that you can tile. (i.e. - if it is a brick wall, make sure the picture is looking flat onto the bricks and there is a good level of detail)

2: Crop the image into a 'Tile' that will be possible to repeat in a way that joins/merges the repeats together (i.e. - with the brick image, if the left crop line cuts halfway through a brick make sure that the right crop line does the same on the opposite side of that brick course; this means that when you copy the image to the left or right, the half bricks will join to make a whole and therefore create the illusion of there being no gaps)

3: Make a copy of this image but convert it to greyscale/black and white using some form of photo editing software (This is to create the 'bump' image that aims to add more texture to the image(?))

4: With your 2 images saved, open up Revit and go to Settings > Materials - Find a material that is close to your custom one (i.e. Brick...) - Duplicate it and rename it - In the Render appearance dialogue, change the first image file to your origional new colour image - Now change the Bump Pattern Image file to your greyscaled image.

5: Go to texture Alignment at the top of the dialogue box and see whether your image fits in with the pattern (i.e. - The bricks in your image are too big or too small compared to the texture pattern) - Use the Sample Size box (just below your new image file thumb) to increase or decrease your image scale.

6: Click Apply > Ok - Add your new material to something, render it and see if it worked!! : )



I'd be grateful if anyone wants to add to that or let me know if any of it is wrong... I just know that I would have been helped greatly by just that info...

Thanks

[Grumple]

I've still got a few questions about all this though!

1: How do you get an image to tile without looking tiled? Does the tile always have to be a square?

2: Does the bump file always have to be a copy of the image? I think I've seen some 3ds max examples of how a 'bump file' can be used to create terrains and all sorts...

3: I've just seen that for bump amount in the render appearance dialogue box you can select an image file... How can an image file be counted as an amount? : |

Any help much appreciated : )

[patricks]

You just have to manipulate the image so that it doesn't look tiled, or find an image that is already made to tile.

Yes the image must be square.

You do not have to use the same image for the bump map. I have often used an image of plain concrete with a bump map of masonry joints to give the look of a cast stone material.

[Grumple]

Thanks : )

[sbrown]

No the image doesn't need to be square. If you are doing bricks go to acme brick's website and use masonry designer to create your brick patterns. If you have access to photoshop or paint shop pro you can create seamless textures pretty easy. do a google search for the tutorials, but basically you take an image, offset it in the x and y direction 1/2 the size of it. then use the clone tool to get rid of the seams you'll see in the middle. then save. then change it to greyscale and adjust the contrast and save that as your bump map.

[Grumple]

Thanks Scott, that sounds exactly what I was after...

So much to learn...

[ejsanford]

Thanks jayc for posting the steps required. I found them to be very helpful.