Bump map is in consistent between faces and fillets on an object - Showcase 2014

[clarker9]

Not sure if anyone can help. Im rendering some bits of furniture in Showcase 2014. I've used showcase on and off for a few years but only recently starting utilising bump mapping to create realistic textures. I've tried to add a leather bump map to a Le corbusier style leather chair, the leather bump map on SOME faces looks great, but on others looks really unrealistic. On some faces, it shows a realistic worn effect, but on others it's just lines as if someone has ran a paintbrush across it! I've attached photos which explain it better than I can.

I'm also having the same problem with a bed sheet and a creased bump map. In the filleted corners for example, the bump map isn't consistent with other surfaces.

I've tried selecting certain faces as object patches but this doesn't seem to make a difference. Would really appreciate some help on this if anyone can shed any light!

Thank you

[cikho · Accepted solution]

select all objects with that material, press ctrl+m, go to the texture mapping option, choose triplanar, press autofit and then resize the map at will! 🙂

the basic texture mapping is always related to object transforming, so if in the original software you mirrored or resized or scaled a certain object, the map will somehow be affected by those changes..

the autofit will revert all these transforms.

this trick will fix the letaher style maps, but it won't probably work with the bed image..

to fix that effect, you'd probably need to use a more complex texture mapping, more similar to videogames ones, and not quite easy to apply honestly..

you'd better find a pre-made bed sheet with waves modelled in geometry

[clarker9]

Thanks for the reply, tried doing what you said but unfortunately the material I have assigned to this/these object(s) doesn't seem to show a texture mapping option! How frustrating. Is the only way round this to assign a newmaterial that does allow texture mapping and play around until it looks right?

[cikho]

that's because you're using autodesk materials!
try using showcase materials instead, you have more options and way more quality! 🙂

the only drawback is that instead of using black and white bump maps, these materials will require a normal map.

this kind of texture is in rgb, and basically reads the rgb value of every pixel as an orientation matrix, being Red rotation on x, Green rotation on Y and Blue rotation on Z.

you can find several on the internet or produce yours starting from an common colored texture and using nvidia normal tools for photoshop or this site http://www.smart-page.net/smartnormal/

🙂

[clarker9]

OOOH! Well I've tried that and it's all sorted!! Thank you. All surfaces are reacting as they should. With regards to the bed, I've just applied a subtle bump map to the top surface only (after fading out the edge of the bump map image in photoshop) and that seems to have done the trick.

Images attached of the final output, still some chages to be made, but alot better than it was.

Thanks for the help cikho