Wood Appearance Challenge!

[Beyondforce]

Hey Guys,

I hope someone can help me with one. When applying an Appearance to a body with fillets, Fusion doesn't do a great job, because of it's limitation. Please check out the screencast and let me know if you have a good why of dealing with this challenge.

Cheers / Ben
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you find this reply helpful ? If so please use the Accept as Solution or Kudos button below.

Check out my YouTube channel: Fusion 360: NewbiesPlus

[colin.smith]

Hi @Beyondforce, 

If you are looking for a better way to apply wood textures you have two options:

1. Apply the projected texture and then change the projection type to get a better look (this works with all projected textures)
2. Use the Wood (Solid) materials - these are specially designed to give you a more accurate 3D wood projection.

For option 1:

• Apply the appearance material to the body
• Go to Render > Setup > Texture Map Controls
• Change the projection type to get a better look on the area of the fillet. 

For option 2:

• Use the Wood (Solid) appearance material for wood 
• Apply the material as normal
• Use the adjustments in the dialog box to change the look of the material

Hope that helps, 

Colin

[Beyondforce]

Hey @colin.smith

Thanks for getting back to me.
Regarding option 1. I know how to work with it, but it doesn't solves my problem. Regarding option 2., I think I'll give a try, but the problem is a lack of materials!

Ben.

[colin.smith]

Hi @Beyondforce, 

There are items in our backlog that will allow you to control the UV direction of the surface which will give you a better result for instance like the fillet you mentioned.

As for Option 2- what types of woods would you like to see there?

Thanks,

Colin

[Beyondforce]

I'm looking for something like Bamboo Light - Semigloss or as the bellow images:

[Beyondforce]

Hey @colin.smith,

Those 3D appearances have a negative effect on the performance, so unfortunately I'll have to ditch them and use flat appearances instead.

Cheers / Ben.

[TrippyLighting]

If you are looking for top notch wooden materials I'll have to refer you to Arroway Textures. Not cheap but worth every penny.

You'll have to experiment with the different channels in the advanced material settings in Fusion 360.

If you have the patience to deal with yet another software, Substance Designer will allow you to create your own textures.

[Beyondforce]

Hey @TrippyLighting,

The links are really good stuff.

My big issue is that, Fusion doesn't know how to apply a material correctly to a body with fillets! Only if I use a 3D material then it applys correctly.

Cheers / Ben.

[TrippyLighting]

Correct. Fusion 360 dose not provide any methods to UV unwrap geometry.

[TrippyLighting]

Actually, reading through this thread agin, what's wrong with using the texture map controls ?

Instead of automatic, maybe use planar or box. That works pretty well for a lot of geometry.

[Beyondforce]

@TrippyLighting,
The problem is with Fillets. When you apply a texture like wood to a body, Fusion is applying the texture to the Fillets seperetly and with a different orientation. Which means, you will have to duplicate the texture for the Fillets and orient it so it will fit the other faces.
Now, every time I want to try a different texture or change the texture map, I'm forced to do it all over again for the Fillets as well. As you can imagine, it is a very daunting job!

The other option, is to use the 3D texture. But the problem is, there are not enough textures (wood types). These 3D textures effects Fusion's performance dramatically so I had to drop it!

Cheers / Ben.

[TrippyLighting]

I don't see that problem when using the texture mapping controls as explained by Colin above. While that certainly doesn't cover every, but of the most part it works fine.

Why would the volumetric textures be a performance problem ? Textures are for rendering, not for modeling. If I do have something textured I turn color cycling on, which overrides the textures. I rarely do not have color cycling turned on.

[Beyondforce]

As for now, I have 72 components and 137 bodies, some are metals and some are woods. I don't play that much with the metal materials but I do play a lot with the wood material.

For each Wood materials, I' forced to have 1 for the body and one for the Fillets (B_Plywood & F_Plywood) and there are many fillets. Every time I'm trying/changing a new material, I have to apply the F_material to all the fillets and make sure it fits to the B_material. This is REALLY not fun!

I don't know why the 3D materials have an effect on the performance, but I can't use them anyway since Fusion doesn't have the wood material that I'm looking for!

[TrippyLighting]

What problem do you see with the fillets in the image I posted ?

[Beyondforce]

There is nothing wrong with it.
I have tested my model with other Rendering softwares and I didn't have the same problem. They knew how to apply the material all over the body including the fillets like it was one pic body with one surface.

[Beyondforce]

According to @colin.smith, they know about this limitation and hopefully they will do something about it in the near future.

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, by default they use different texture mapping, like planar, for example just as I in the  Fusion 360 rendering in my post.

[Beyondforce]

I was just hoping maybe there is another way of doing it to save my self a lot of time, but unfortunately there isn't. In my case, I'll have to use a different rendering software or to live with Fusion's limitation.

I'm testing Thea rendering right now.

[TrippyLighting]

What limitation are you taking about ?

[Beyondforce]

My first post and Colin's post explains it very good.