Brickwork textures / techniques

[alfienoakes]

This is just a quick straw poll, to get an idea of how people achieve "good" results.

 

My process involves generally taking either a Revit or Autocad Architecture file, file linking to Max and rendering using Vray. I have various textures that I use for this process to suit brick types etc.

 

The problem I have is, large areas tend to look very flat. Bump mapping just doesnt cut it, and displacement doesnt work very well on linked geometry (corners are a nightmare)

 

So, the only other option I was thinking about, was re-creating the brickwork using max geometry and freezing out the linked brickwork.. But this could be a nightmare on larger projects.

 

If anyone has any techniques they dont mind pointing me at / sharing it would be great to see how you go about this.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Chris MacDonald]

I tend to use arroway textures & displacement and they always look fine. Failing that a while back a company called Materialwerk appeared with an amazing product called "Brix", which used real images of individual bricks to procedurally generate a wall that never tiles, each brick with it's own diffuse/specular/displacement maps too.

 

Though from what I remember the two chaps that started it fell out for some reason or another and the product was taken down, however I've heard it is to be re-released as "Mighty Tiles", though where and when it will be released I do not know.

 

Some references;

 

http://www.arroway-textures.com/

 

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/brix-by-materialwerk/

 

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/2011-forums-summary-winners/

 

"The texturing category is sponsored by MightyTiles, the procedural tiling plugin for 3ds max created by Dieter Finkenzeller (the developer of BRIX). The new plugin offers the same functionality supporting the latest builds of 3dsmax & VRay."

[AubreyM]

I have always found that a hi quality texture in combination with bump/displacement works quite well. I would only attempt to model it if it was going to be a real closeup shot.

There is a brick manufacturer that released a program that would create seamless brick textures of all their different products. The quality was good and I would bring them into photoshop to create the bump and spec maps and maybe some adjustments. Worked really well, though I can't remember the name off hand.

[alfienoakes]

Chirs,

 

I have seen the brix one, looks really good. I actually use a similar product called "bricks n tiles", does a similar thing from images of whatever you want.

 

Aubrey,

 

Yes, its the displacement that does make the difference. I wouldnt model bricks as such, but because the linked geometry from Acad / Revit doesnt react the same way at corners as Max's own meshes, I cant get that to work. So what I was thinking, was to somehow convert or model the Auotcad brikc areas in Max from native Max geometry..

 

I have attached an image which is a tricky one anyway, to illustrate what I mean in terms of "flatness".[ATTACH=CONFIG]47322[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]47322[/ATTACH]

 

Cheers

[AubreyM]

This is what you can get with a high quality texture with bump and specular maps. There is no displacement used either.

http://www.3devolutions.com/pics/GarageInterior.jpg

[ronll]

I almost always use procedural textures for brick rather than maps. If it is really close to the camera, I might model it. But I find mapped textures for things like brick usually look cartoonish and flat. But then my rendering engine is an old DOS text-based program that allows me to write my own textures. (Of course these two examples are low res jpegs so the texture isn't really obvious here.)

 

http://www.ronlloyd.com/Renderings/lakefrn.jpg

http://www.ronlloyd.com/Renderings/curtr10.jpg

Edited March 21, 2012 by ronll

[marius e]

Acme masonry tool: Its real great!

 

http://www.brick.com/md/index.htm

[Craig Ramsay]

Martin, one of the original owners of Materialwerk has released a new series of plugins that do a lot of similar things to Brix - http://www.vizpark.com/

[alfienoakes]

OK.. Thats some good bits there.

 

I have a few bits of work where the architect will want a specific type of brick, so the bricks n tiles works well in that I can use the correct brick. Where its not so good, is they all look a bit cartoon ish to me..

 

So bascially, you guys will use a hi res texture, maybe created from one of the links above, and then apply that to the geometry. The displacement is my only issue as like I said, geometry from ACAD tends to not behave correctly at corners (for me anyhow).. I think its the dispacement that gives it the edge.

 

I will have to check out the procedural texture as well, just to see how that works. I really need to get this sorted, as I think its killing a lot of my images.

 

Cheers

[RyderSK]

Well, sadly, for proper displacement, you will never be able to use straight linked (imported) geometry. Sometimes welding the mesh itself helps, sometimes more interventions have to be done.

 

As for photosourced maps vs. procedurals, I have to disagree too. High quality,high resolution photosourced maps are WAY superior to procedurals. With rightly extracted displacement maps (not that easy process) they look absolutely real, and it's the way biggest pros like Bertrand Benoit use them.

 

Good source of maps is for example here : http://www.petersen-tegl.dk/en/visualisering.aspx

[alfienoakes]

There is some good stuff there guys..

 

So.. for my summary then, its a high quality texture map as a start, based on some real panels or similar.

 

Final question, do you guys construct your own panels using the bricks you require, or do some of the links above do this for you, to produce a realistic looking panel.

 

Many thanks..

[monkeyman905]

Does anyone know if Brix is still avaliable to buy?

[RyderSK]

Does anyone know if Brix is still avaliable to buy?

 

Nope. They split. The "programmer" guy will release similar product called "Mighty tiles". Let's see