Textures on Steel Structures?

[Oxygen454]

I have steel beams and pipes, is there a way to add a texture to make the metal look metal? I found a website which has these textures but they do not tell me how to load and use them.

[shift1313]

here is a screen shot i just took for you.

 

From the render toolbar you hit the materials button and the window(similar to this one) will show up. The way it works is you need to have materials you want to use imported into the "current" space. If you click the Materials Library button it will take you to the second screen shot. You can see the headings are current library and current drawing. In the current library is any preloaded materials. You can select any of those and hit the preview button and it will show you a small sample, or you can click the open button and just navigate your hard drive to the location of your downloaded materials and open that folder. Once you have your materials in the Current Library area you need to select one, hit the import button and make sure it goes into your Current Drawing area. Once in your Current drawing area you can hit OK and it will go back to the materials window.

 

From here you can attach material to your objects, modify material properties etc. With the material selected press the Attach button and select your i beam or i beams and hit enter. If you wish to modify it the top right corner of this window has a modify button which will give you options like bump map, roughness, reflectiveness i think. Each version of Acad things change a little, 07+ changed a good bit but i believe 04 should be the same as what i put here.

 

Keep in mind this does not account for lights or an environment.

 

 

I cant even begin to pretend i know what im doing with rendering because i never really play around with it so finding a tutorial on this site may be the best way for you to get familiar with it.

[ReMark]

shift1313: You're using 2007. Oxygen is using 2004. He may, or may not, see what you see. That's one problem with giving instructions even if the software is generally the same.

[Cad64]

Well, actually, Shift's screenshots are from 2005, so they should they should be fine.

[shift1313]

yeah thats why i didnt give him an 07 shot because after 06 it was completely different. I honestly dont remember exactly how 04 looked but i dont remember any changes between 04-05 in rendering.

[Oxygen454]

The materials screen is exactally the same. I loaded the materials in the materials library, then went into the materials screen (clicked on the round ball with the paint brush) and went attach, selected the beam, and hit enter. Nothing happened. I even tried different textures and nothing...

 

Select objects:

Updating drawing...done.

Gathering objects...1 found

Select objects to attach "BUMPY METAL" to:

Updating drawing...done.

 

 

The other thing is, all the textures on the web are .jpg when I need .mli

[Cad64]

If I remember correctly, in 2004, those standard Autocad materials only show up when rendered? I could be wrong though, I haven't used those older versions in quite awhile.

 

The .mli file is the Autocad Material Library file. It's a collection of procedural materials all bundled up into one file. You can still apply .jpg's as materials.

[shift1313]

yes after you apply the materials you need to render(green teapot button). the render screen will ask you where you want to render to as well as prompt you for some additional level of controls on things like background. If you render viewport(i think) that will just render the screen your looking at, like in my screen shot you can see one beam is funny looking because i rendered the viewport. it will stay this way until you pan, zoom or change your viewports.

[Oxygen454]

The 3D rendering finally worked but as soon as I move the screen (different views or zooms) the rendering disappears.... whats happening? lol

[Cad64]

That's what I meant when I said that materials only show up when rendered in the older versions. Once you Zoom or Pan they disappear. There is nothing wrong, that's just the way the old versions work.

[Oxygen454]

Ah gotchya okay so in other words time to upgrade LOL

[Cad64]

In your "Render" dialog, you can change the "Destination" option to "Render Window" instead of "Viewport". This won't help with the problem, but it might be a better option for you.

[Cad64]

Ah gotchya okay so in other words time to upgrade LOL

 

If you're planning on going further with 3D in Autocad then it might be a good idea to consider upgrading. The new features that were introduced in 2007 make it well worth it.

[Oxygen454]

Ya I have heard a lot of good things about 07. I wonder what 09 would cost?

[Cad64]

I don't know what the cost to upgrade would be, but since you're using 2004, you qualify for Autodesk's legacy program which means you could get a pretty good discount.

[Oxygen454]

Probably like a grand