Hi All,
I'm trying to render a ball with a photograph as the texture, in Skp it looks as it should but as soon as I start to render it, it looses the image!
Could someone let me know whether I'm doing something wrong or if maybe this isn't possible to do?
I've uploaded the model so you can see what I mean!
Thanks in advance.
Fred
Replies
Hi,
I'm a new user, but quick to get my feet wet! Saw this post and was also intrigued by the possibilities of wrapping a sphere with an image or texture. Rich, don't know if you figured out why it wasn't working for you, but maybe I can help.
First off, I discovered some weird things about the ball.skp model. The group itself is painted with the image, and if you go into the group to edit it, it shows the face is painted with default on both sides. If I select two different colors and paint the two sides of the face, they'll change as expected, but if you then repaint it with default, it paints with a highly tiled version of the image! If you go to the styles panel, everything's normal with the front and back colors for default.
In any event, here's the method I found that works for painting a sphere with an image. I created my sphere in a similar way. For no particular reason, I made the circle with 50 sides and 3' radius. Used the rotate tool to copy and rotate the circle 90 degrees (starting out with guide lines helps to make sure you're rotating on the centerline of the circle). From center inference point of the intersecting circles, I drew a ray on the blue axis, first up to the circle edge, then another from center down. Deleted 1/2 of the vertical circle, and the face of the horizontal circle. Used follow me to make the sphere. Showed hidden lines, used the soften panel with soften coplanar checked, and moved the slider enough for the unhidden remnant of the horizontal circle to disappear.
The key thing I found for painting it was that it won't work if you import the image file as "use as texture" - it just gives the result you got. You have to import it as "use as image". Then I follow Fred's direction to place it opposite the sphere, scaled so it's about the same size. Here again, setting up guide lines in advance helps with the positioning of the image. Then, YOU HAVE TO EXPLODE THE IMAGE FILE. After that, you alt-click with the paint bucket tool on the image, and then paint it onto the sphere. Works like a charm (at least it does for me!). Constructed that way, I haven't found that it matters whether it's in a group or not when you render, and the reverse face is still painted with default, so you don't have to select "always process two-sided faces".
Another technique that can work really well is to open an image file in Photoshop and save it as an .hdr file. I don't remember exactly all my steps, but I see by looking at the file that I also converted it to 32-bit, though I don't know if that matters. Then I just located it from the HDRI panel of the render setup. Since it wasn't a 360 pano, it's necessary to adjust the rotation settings so you see the part of the image you want on the sphere from the perspective you're viewing it. I've also found that saving the rendered image as an .hdr from the iRender nXt image editor gives me a lot of added flexibility to tone-map it in Photoshop CS5. (image>adjustments>HDR toning)
The attached image is from a pano I shot in Savannah, GA.
The reflections on the bottom half are from another sphere rendered with one of the other HDRI stock images, adjusted for high contrast, rotated around, and using hard light blending mode and lowering opacity.
Hi Rich,
I've attached a diagram of how I applied the texture! But what I have found is that you have to place the image directly oposite the shape you want the image to go on and approximately the same size, but both objects have to be exploded first! Then once you've applied the image onto the shape it's just abit of tweaking around with the scale in the paint bucket!
hope this helps!
Let me know how you get on?
Fred
Rich Hart said:
Irender.jpg
No, I can't do it. I don't know what step I'm missing...
fred henaux said:
Hi Rich,
The only way you can apply the whole image is to explode the group, then you can apply the image, but only to one half, then I copied that half and flipped it to make the ball!
Did that make sense?
My explanations aren't the best!
Rich Hart said:
Fred,
If I use Follow Me to make a sphere from 2 circles, and then put it in a group, and then use the SketchUp Material bucket to apply a texture material to the group, I get the result below.
What step am I missing to get the continuous image on a sphere, like you did?
Hi Rich,
I applied the image via the paint bucket in Skp, I used the sample paint option.
Just tryed what you suggested earlier and works OK!
Thanks for your help.
Fred
Fred,
Did you use Photo Match to apply the photo, or some other technique?
fred henaux said:
Hi Rich,
No sorry, I created the ball then applied the photo!
I'll try what you suggested later.
Thanks for your help.
Fred
So you put the photo texture on the circles and then used the follow me tool , right?
I'd like to learn how to do that and get the faces on the outside of the ball to be "front" faces.
fred henaux said:
I don't know yet. Exploding seems to do the trick ( along with the Always use 2 sided faces setting), but we'll have to see if we can get the same data somehow for the faces in the the unexploded group.
We'll have to play with this some more...
fred henaux said:
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