Object Local XYZ dependent composite material

[batteryoperatedlettuce]

I am trying to make a material which will aproximately simulate a solid piece of wood.

 

 

A typical piece of plywood has a "flat grain" an "edge grain" and a "head grain"

 

 

I would like to be able to apply this to an object and have the material apply one of three different bitmap textures, depending on the orientation (local to the object) of the face (with gradients between the three maps in cases where faces are not completely aligned).

 

 

Is this possible with vray 2 or with existing composite materials, or do I need to make a script?

 

 

Many thanks as always in advance - And happy Chinese new year to everyone!

[batteryoperatedlettuce]

I should clarify - I am basically trying to set up a solid material affect which I can apply to objects in my scene which makes them behave as if they were "solid" and made of this material. I have already written a script which will auto-assign IDs [1,2,3] based on local face orientation, but this workflow is too clumsy and besides, does not "gradient" or "cross fade" the materials based on their orientation toward one of the three axial planes. This will require a much more horrible max script, so I want to make sure that there is no way of doing this with a material.

 

 

If there really isn't then... come on guys!

[jasonstewart]

If it is for wood the berconwood map is decent. I am not sure if you could adapt berconmapping for this purpose but it may be worth exploring.

[Nicolai Bongard]

I dont think there are any possibilites of setting it up with a material that will universally work. However you seem to handle scripting, so perhaps try to find a system involving assigning different vertex colors could be a way to go about it? You can use vertex colors in a blend material, thus securing a smooth transition between the materials/maps.