Creating Custom Materials

[Anonymous]

Is there any where that explains how to take a Digital picture of some painted of Stained siding and create a custom Archicad material for the Open GL and Lightworks renderers?

[Dwight]

I've done this in all of my books.

For the photo:
Use a telephoto on a tripod in shade to minimize shadow and distortion.

Crop the photo to make a logical repeat - likely along board edges. Ideally a long image of just one or two 'perfect' boards. JPEG is okay.
Record the size of the board to properly scale it in Archicad.
Add the image to the Archicad Library by creating a special folder for your custom images.

Open any material dialog and duplicate it. Use the Internal Engine for your first creation. Open GL will automatically refer to it. In the picture window, bring in the new image and size it. Set the material colour.

Switch to Lightworks Engine and click "Match to Internal Engine." This move transfers the settings.

[Anonymous]

Sadly (only because I have not utilized it) I do own the Illustration in ArchiCAD Copyright 2002. Photo imagery can be a foreign language to me. I will look further into the book. Thanks.

My struggle in the past has always been not having a duplicated image that looks duplicated due to the different lighting on the object and not knowing even Photoshop Elements enough to accomplish a proper "meshing" of the multiple images.