Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Texture problem on steep sloped mesh

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi.

I hope some of you out there can help me. I'm trying to project a texture onto a terrain in AC12, but somehow the texture shows up wrong on the steepest parts of the mesh. Is there a way to correct this? Is seems like the texture on these steep parts are projected vertically onto the terrain instead of planar like I want it to.

Thanks for any help
15 REPLIES 15
Anonymous
Not applicable
That is a normal behavior from a 3d software where you have a planar map on a mesh that slope much. One way to go is to place roofs on the most bad places and apply a terraintexture on that roof. But it can be hard to get a smooth edge between the mesh and roof.

christr wrote:
Hi.

I hope some of you out there can help me. I'm trying to project a texture onto a terrain in AC12, but somehow the texture shows up wrong on the steepest parts of the mesh. Is there a way to correct this? Is seems like the texture on these steep parts are projected vertically onto the terrain instead of planar like I want it to.

Thanks for any help
Anonymous
Not applicable
I could probably do that, but since the problem is pretty much all over, this would take days, and would still not look 100%. There must be a way to control this?
Anonymous
Not applicable
Do you have a free form 3d software like 3d studio or Cinema4d? You could control it there. But not here in ArchiCad.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi christr,

Maybe it can be fixed by GDL...

You would need to save the mesh as an object and edit the 3d script...

Long shot... but it worth try...

If you post a pla file of your mesh here I'll take a look.

Ah! And don't forget to create a signature in your profile with your AC version and OS and HW specs here on the forum... It will help us help you.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi.

I'm onto thin ice here with gdl objects, but you may very well take a look. Would be fantastic if it works!

I could of course take the model into 3DS Max or similar, but the project is just starting, so it would be amazing if I could work on the entire project in AC.

How do I upload a large file?
Anonymous
Not applicable
christr wrote:
How do I upload a large file?
No need to upload the whole project...

1. Backup your work...

2. Save your project with the "pla" extension (drop down in the save options) and delete everything except the mesh... (The pla file will put all the textures in a single package)

3. Zip it and upload the zip file here in the "Add an Attachment" Section of your post.
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
I have always had this problem with steep terrain meshes in ArchiCAD and have reported it as a bug.

I disagree that this is 'normal' in 3D software. The ArchiCAD texture mapping defects are worse than those illustrated, sometimes giving bizarre spirals of distortion. See this discussion:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=144913

For the same mesh that gives me problems in ArchiCAD, when I apply the same texture in Artlantis, everything is fine.

Cheers,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
David Collins
Advocate
Texture mapping in ArchiCAD has always had these issues, particularly for meshes (MASS) and TUBES.
Not much hope for a solution in GDL: to achieve full control you'd have to recreate the terrain using single primitive planes and then map each one using TEVE commands. Ouch!

See:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=127264&highlight=#127264

for problems getting a flag image to map properly on an animated flag object.

As Karl says, Artlantis can often do a better job of this than ArchCAD, but not always.
Another thing to try, at least in OpenGL: turn off smoothing.
David Collins

Win10 64bit Intel i7 6700 3.40 Ghz, 32 Gb RAM, GeForce RTX 3070
AC 27.0 (4001 INT FULL)
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thanks for the replies.

I understand that this is a known problem, so I won't try too hard in AC. I will however try it in either Artlantis or 3DS Max. At least I know how to get it to work in 3DS Max.

Braza: Thanks for the help. I will see how it turns out in the other programs, and I will get back to you if I'm in need of your help.