Array modifier

[robw]

Hi, this is a silly question that's waiting for a silly answer.

I'm trying to make a wooden plank boardwalk that goes in gentle curves around a horseshoe shape.

I draw a box, add an array, adjust a few settings like the gap etc. and bingo, a boardwalk.

It seems to me that to get it to go around curved corners I either use the spline option in the array, or I add a Path Deform.

My issue is that my wood material doesn't follow the orientation of each element of the array, instead it takes the UVs at the start and applies them across the whole array.

Boardwalk 1 is without any attempt at curving the array.

Boardwalk 2 has a PathDeform added.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

I'm using Max 2024 and VRay 6.2.

[wernienst · Accepted solution]

Simple solution: in the Coordinates section of the texture map, choose Explicit Map Channel instead of Object XYZ. However, thus all objects in the array get identical UV coordinates, so they look identical. My solution is creating a multi-material with different versions of the original material and choosing Random ID in the Material ID section of the Array modifier.

BTW, I use Array's Spline Distribution because Path Deform would also deform the object copies.

[robw]

Excellent, thank you