Gabi Jack's Blog

Adventures in Textures

If you’ve ever attempted to layout a tile floor at home or create a garment out of a piece of plaid fabric, then you may have an idea of what editing and mapping textures in PhotoWorks feels like, and, especially in the case of the garment, how difficult it is at times to make the plaid pattern match exactly at the seams. You usually need extra fabric for that! Lucky for us, in PhotoWorks we don’t need extra of anything, we just need to learn how to map the texture and a bit of patience. 

Unlike procedural appearances, textures are 2D images that are applied to surfaces pretty much like wallpaper. PhotoWorks allows us to stretch, shrink, rotate, and reorient the texture in order to fit the surface and to make it match or look better with textures applied to other surfaces of the same model.  Doing so is what’s known as mapping a texture, and it usually involves a bit of hard work, but can be very rewarding because it certainly improves the look and quality of our rendered image. In the following image, a texture was applied to the whole part. The mapping was automatic in this case, but the texture can be edited and its rotation, size, and orientation modified.

Mapping a texture on a flat surface may just be the easiest of all the texture mapping you’re ever going to do. First, go to the render manager in PhotoWorks and right click on the texture you wish to edit to open the appearances property manager. Select Mapping, Advanced, and you will find something very similar to what’s shown in the following image, where the blue and pink rectangle represents the size of the texture element, which is, by the way, getting tiled all over the surface.

In the property manager, you can change the numerical values of the width and height of this texture element, thus making the size of the pattern appear larger or smaller, like in this image.

You can also move the texture element horizontally or vertically across the surface, by adjusting the offset values (green and red arrows) in the property manager.

This is my kind of mapping! It’s not so complicated. It would be perfect if textures needed to be applied only on flat surfaces, but sometimes we are going to need to apply textures to cylindrical and spherical surfaces as well, or to weird shaped surfaces, and that’s when it gets a bit complicated. Not impossible, just complicated. I guess it takes a lot of practice. I find myself relying a lot on trial and error, but I hope someday soon I’ll develop some sort of instinct that at least will provide me with an enhanced ability to guess.

When mapping a texture on a cylindrical surface, we are going to find that the appearance property manager offers very similar options to what we had before with the flat surface.  Same as before, we can change the width and height of the texture element, rotate it, and translate it up and down along the axis of the cylinder.

If we change the rotation angle, we can achieve the following effect.

Cylinders are OK, still not extremely complicated. Spheres however are a bit tough, at least for me.  Spherical mapping offers even more options in the appearance manager, and so now we can alter the width and height of the texture element, its rotation angle, and the orientation of the pattern poles. Here in the following image, for instance, I’m reorienting the pattern pole to be at 39 degrees from the Y axis.

As a curious note, I tried to create a mapping exercise with PhotoView 360, to compare, but there was no way to edit anything else about a texture other than its scale.

I can see that mapping is all about practice and more practice, patience and taste. I think I’m not doing so badly. I was able to solve all the exercises in the guide and I think they turned out really good. Seriously, if you want to learn how to map a texture, among many other interesting things, you should really consider the Step-by-Step PhotoWorks guide. I love this book!  I’m learning a lot from it, and enjoying the process too.

Learning to render using PhotoWorks

My first render ever was made in PhotoView 360. That was also the day I fell in love with rendering applications, because seeing how good that rendered image looked like made me feel that I could also be a creative (even artistic) person after all. This is big news if you are like me and grew up with a sister that could draw incredibly realistic images with her hands by the time she was nine years old.  For years I wouldn’t dare to even doodle in front of her, in fear of her criticism!  Anyway, as I was saying, my rendered image wasn’t the big deal, certainly not as good as many others I’ve seen in blogs, websites and magazines, but it was enough to ignite the flame of curiosity inside of me. Now I had to learn how to do this rendering thing!

While PhotoView seemed really easy to use, just by clicking and dragging and that’s it, I felt that what I really needed was to learn about the process involved in creating a good rendered image, because frankly I had no idea of what I was doing back then. That new Step-by-Step guide to PhotoWorks, featured in Rob Rodriguez website, seemed just perfect for that purpose.

So I started reading, and solving the exercises, and discovered quickly that PhotoWorks isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Yes, in general it does take a little longer than PhotoView, but there are also a few options available in PhotoWorks that I wish PhotoView had, like a feature manager to select from, and a render manager, to keep track of the appearances that have been added to faces, features and parts and to aid in the process of editing appearances and scenes.

Something else that I certainly appreciate about PhotoWorks and that I haven’t found the way to do in PhotoView just yet is the ability to edit the scene and change, among many other things, the plane or surface against which to project the shadows of the model. Both applications offer the possibility of editing the appearances, but it seems to me that PhotoWorks has a few more options available, many of them I haven't quite figured out how to use yet.

So far, I’ve done only very basic renderings in PhotoWorks, using predefined scenery available in PhotoWorks Studio, which already includes all the necessary options like a background and a scheme of lights. I also used the Render Wizard, which guides you along every stage in the process while assigning appearances, scenes and finally rendering the model. I guess this would be the equivalent to the click and drag from PhotoView, except that it’s possible to use this render as a starting point and then edit these options  and tweak settings a little bit in order to obtain better results.

This is a rendered image of a little toy tank that I downloaded from the 3D content central.

I used PhotoWorks Studio first and then tweaked the scene a little bit, but only to specify that shadows on the floor would be visible and that the model would be considered resting on its X-Z plane; that way the shadow appears under the model in the image, instead of on a wall or any other place. This little detail adds some realism to the image, I think.

The same model, as rendered in PhotoView, using exactly the same appearances and the closest match to the scene that I could find. I could never find a way to add a shadow to the image by tweaking the scene in PhotoView, but maybe there’s an option that I didn’t see?

Anyway, I just learned that Rob Rodriguez is soon to post a series of articles dealing precisely with the differences between PhotoWorks and PhotoView 360, so make sure to visit his blog often and, while you are there, enter this month’s rendering contest. I’m planning on entering for the very first time. I know that with my less than stellar skills I’m not likely to win anything, but it would be really fun, anyway. And now back to the guide. I want to learn more advanced techniques!

Great deals on SW educational bundles at Novedge

OK, this is not a commercial and I’m not getting a commission to tell you this, but I thought I would pass along this information to whoever is interested. If you are looking to buy the new student edition of SolidWorks 2008-2009, you may consider taking a look at what Novedge has for sale right now. There are great offers on educational bundles that include a copy of Inspirtech’s SolidWorks 2008-2009 Fundamentals training DVD. So, if you are interested, go check it out at Novedge and take advantage of this offer before it expires.

The SolidWorks Routing Manual not everyone knows about

As I had mentioned in my previous post, while looking for a SolidWorks Routing Manual, I came across the website of another SolidWorks user who created his own manual and was offering it for sale. Unfortunately, right at that moment he was out of town and not taking any orders, but today I’m glad to announce to all of you who may be interested that he’s back, his site is up and he’s taking orders again. In fact, I just ordered my own manual a few minutes ago. The author’s name is Wes Mosier and he’s Sr. Designer / Detailing Manager for Lortz Manufacturing in Bakersfield, California. He’s also a CSWP with over 18 years of experience in 3D design and solid modeling (among many, many other related areas), and president of the Bakersfield area user group.  He wrote the Piping and Tubing Design Guide for SolidWorks Routing, a very complete manual (perhaps the only one of its kind), with over 250 pages full of colorful illustrations and detailed instructions (just look at the sample pages in the tip and tricks section on his site), and that is offered through his website in pdf form.  The price of the manual is only 50 dollars, which is a really great deal, considering that for that same price you get access to a whole year of updates that may be made to it due to new releases or service packs coming out. You are also authorized to share your copy (ONLY) with those working with you in your same company. It seems amazing to me that not many people know about the existence of this manual. But now you know!  If you are interested, pay Wes Mosier a visit and get your Routing Manual today!

The kind of newsletter I like

If you have bought lessons from Solid Professor, chances are you receive their interactive newsletter “Ask Solid Professor” already.  Isn’t it the neatest thing? I have never bought any lessons from them, I’ve only sampled the freebies, but I receive the newsletter just the same, because it’s free for everyone. You don’t need to buy from Solid Professor to subscribe to it. Now, the really neat thing about it is that, unlike other newsletters, it features 3 mini-video lessons answering questions that were submitted by users, like you or me, who subscribe to the newsletter. You can even include files when submitting your question to them! Of course, it may take some time before you can get an answer to your question, so if you’re in a hurry, your best bet is still to get yourself a good reference book, try to get the help from your VAR, or head for the SolidWorks user forums or SolidMentor.  But if you are not in a hurry, or if you are just a bit curious and wish to learn something, then perhaps you should subscribe to it.  After all, it’s free! Searching through their archive of previous questions and answers isn’t free for everyone, though. I believe there is a nominal fee (something around $25 dollars) for those who haven’t bought learning materials from Solid Professor. I’m about to submit a question myself to see how long it takes for them to answer. Check out the newsletter and you may see my question there one of these days!

My experience with Inspirtech

My mother used to say that those born during a meteor shower, such as me, were destined to be tremendously lucky, and I guess she was right. I recently had the great fortune and pleasure of sampling and reviewing Inspirtech’s training materials; the complete SolidWorks 2008 fundamentals bundle, to be more specific.

For those that haven’t sampled the free lessons or at least seen the videos at CADJunky, Inspirtech is a relatively new SolidWorks training provider that offers high quality video lessons at incredibly affordable prices. And I really mean it: it’s dirt cheap! But don’t be fooled by the low price, because this is an incredible value for your money. All the lessons are very easy to follow, easy to understand, amazingly clear, and very well planned out.

Each lesson has been developed by a certified SolidWorks professional (CSWP), with plenty of real life experience, and includes examples and several exercises for you to solve together with the instructor, who will guide you in the process, step by step, and offer useful and creative tips along the way. Also included with each lesson are templates and start point files that you will need to complete the exercises. I was able to follow the lessons and complete the exercises, even with my 2007 student edition, because parasolid versions of the files were also available.

All the parts and assemblies presented in the examples and exercises are interesting and inspired in what you may find out there, real-life applications and real-life objects. This is something that I found particularly useful and inspiring, because many times you may learn the basic concept, but it isn’t until you see it applied that more ideas start to generate inside your head.

In addition to excellent training, you also get help right when you need it, with online chat assistance. Who could ask for more?

As I said before, the bundle of lessons I sampled is about the fundamentals of Solidworks and aimed at beginners, but keep an eye out for more lessons coming up soon. I’ve been told that there will soon be lessons for intermediate and advanced users and on topics such as weldments, sheet metal, routing, etc.

I see a great future for Inspirtech!

What a bargain!

While browsing around SolidMentor, I came across a couple of links to some really affordable online engineering training resources that are worth checking out. One of them is  i.get.it, the world’s most comprehensive online engineering training resource, where, among other courses in the catalog, I found a SolidWorks Premium Training Bundle with 68 courses, plus assessments, selling for $395. If you are on a budget, like me, you'll find that amount reasonable when compared to the thousands you would probably  have to pay at an authorized training center.

The second resource worth looking at is Inspirtech, with hundreds of courses that are also extremely affordable, easy to use and  easy to understand for beginners. Plus, a special offer for students involved in the SAE Collegiate Design Competitions: Inspirtech is offering FREE training to the students in the teams! How cool is that?