Materials Showing Up Black in Autodesk Viewer

[solvdesigns]

I am using a soldier brick for accent trim around arches and windows.  The OTB material is too dark and the vertical joints are too close to avoid mortar joints where they shouldn't be.  So, I edited the image files to lighten them and spread out the vertical joints.  The new material works great in Revit!  But, as soon as I upload to Autodesk Viewer to show to clients, those materials come through black in the viewer.

Any idea what might be causing this?

More importantly, any suggestions on how to fix it?

Please see attached examples.

[syman2000]

I test the material and it doesn't seem to give me the black texture. Can you do a screenshot of what material you are using or do you add custom tint to the material.

[solvdesigns]

Thanks for responding!

Here are the screenshots of the material I am using.

I took the OTB "Brick - Soldier - Cream" material asset and edited the image to make it white and to only have joints in the one direction.  I didn't make any other changes that I am aware of.  Like I said, that works great inside Revit itself, but turns black when uploaded to the Autodesk Viewer.

What material are you using for your test?

[syman2000 · Accepted solution]

I am using the OOTB material. I also modify the material using PBR and it shows up fine. Can you copy the material over to new project. I like to test it from my end and see if I am getting different result from Autodesk viewer.

https://viewer.autodesk.com/id/dXJuOmFkc2sub2JqZWN0czpvcy5vYmplY3Q6YTM2MHZpZXdlci90MTYxMzAwMDEyMDU5M...

[solvdesigns]

Thanks!

I am a little confused by your statement that you are using the OOTB material.  I can't find any OOTB material that is white soldier brick.  Do you have one? 

It appears that you have taken one of the material assets for a colored soldier brick and switched the images to the reflection image for standing seam metal roof to make a custom material using creatively selected OOTB images.  That is actually a very ingenious way of creating something like soldier brick without joints running horizontally!  That might be the fix for this particular predicament!

It still leaves the question of why edited material images show up fine in Revit but not in the Viewer.  More importantly, I am still needing to figure out how to get customized material images to show up correctly in the viewer.  That is going to be an ongoing need!  Any ideas on either of those questions?

I have included a link to my most recent Viewer test and attached the Revit file it came from.  Please let me know if you see anything there that could explain the issue.

Thanks again!

https://autode.sk/3d2tCtU

[solvdesigns · Accepted solution]

Well, I have good news and bad news.  Mostly good news...

Summary:

• I found a way to fix the immediate need with your clever idea of using the standing seam reflective image.  Thanks!
• Custom images appear to show up correctly in the viewer as long as they are not applied to a PBR-based asset.
• I still have no idea what is causing the issue with customized PBR materials showing black in the Viewer.

I tried your trick of using the OOTB reflective images for standing seam metal to create the elongated white soldier brick look to use for sills, headers, arches, etc. (To repeat from the original post, the reason for wanting no mortar joints running horizontally is that they make it too fiddly to get each instance aligned so none of them have joints across the face.)  It worked!  Not a perfect representation of brick and mortar, but it will get the job done. 

I was wondering if it was something in the way I was editing the images or something with the software I was using to edit them.  So, I tried editing using a different method and different software.  No dice!  Same result.

I decided to try some texture images from some other source.  I got several different versions of soldier brick from Architextures.  I ran several different tests before I finally figured out at least part of the puzzle.  The issue seems to be something to do with applying customized images to PBR material assets!

In the attached Revit file, and Autodesk Viewer link, and screenshots you can see the current results.

• The geometry in the bottom is some of the objects where I used the standing seam trick to create the desired look for the brick trim.
• The two walls above on the far left are attempts to take old OOTB Revit soldier brick materials and use a generic color and image fade to try turning them white.  It kind of works inside Revit, but the white is completely lost in the Viewer.
• The next four windows use the old (non PBR) “Uniform Soldier – Yellow” material asset as a base but switch the image to one from Architextures or one that I edited myself.  They need a bit of work to get the bump files to match up, and I would still need to remove the horizontal mortar joints for my particular use, but they all show up correctly in the Autodesk Viewer!
• The next four windows use the new PBR “Brick - Soldier - Light Blend” material asset as a base and change the image to the exact same ones as the last four.  This is the bad news.  I still have no idea why these all work fine in Revit but come through black in the viewer.
• The last two walls are just repeats.  The first a uniform brick material I turned white by using the “Brick Uniform Running bump” file for both the main image and the bump image.  The second another of the walls using the “standing seam metal refl” image to approximate elongated soldier bricks.

Anyone have any idea how to get customized PBR materials to show correctly in the Autodesk Viewer?

https://autode.sk/3jBGt7s