Can you only position textures/materials on un-grouped/non-components?

Try to aline wood grain to match up with lengthwise table top grain to lengthwise aprons grain. It is coming in on the end grain to the aprons face. It is a component and to open it then right click on, lists only Make Unique Texture. Until you explode it > select it >then right click is the only way Textures is listed in the drop down. To get the positioning pins to be available. Dont know if this is the way it “has to be” then have to go back and re-assign them??? It would be murder if you had numerous copies to re-aline the grain to… Just curious if there is a trick to it…Peace…

If you make a box outside of the object, put the texture on it, then orientate the texture. Now you can sook up the texture with the pipette on the texture dialogue and use it to paint the component/group.

The other way to do it is to copy the component, explode it and rotate the texture as you need to, then (again) use the pipette to take the texture into the fills pallet. Now use this texture to paint the un-exploded component.

(Or you edit the component and place the textures on each surface individually.)

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Hello and Thanks, I did not think of using the pipette that way. My first conception of it is as a color picker and did not see it as texture picker. Will give it a try right now, VERY BIG HELP as I have a bunch of copies to position!! Thanks again and …Peace…

GOT IT!!! Thanks!!

The one on the edit picks the colour, the one on the texture picker takes the texture from another object :smile:

Note: if you leave the texture of all the objects in a component as “default”, then a fill applied to the component will fill every “default” surface with the texture. It will not fill every instance of the component; just that one.

If you go into the component and fill a surface, then it is filled in every instance with that texture. (if you select all [ctrl-a] and fill one of the selected surfaces, then they would all fill)

You can “nest” components to get every instance filled, but filling components within components can get a headache to keep straight.

This self-paced-tutorial was made for dynamic components, but the first half of the tutorial pages are all about setting a texture orientation on a geometry-basis so other textures can be applied to the entire group/component with the eye-dropper. It is a little bit of up-front work but makes texture swapping easy.

Just remember to download the actual .skp and open it up. If you try to embed it in an existing document, it won’t work.

– Matt

Thanks for the info, the more of it you see the better off your are. Also until you get hands on with it, actually work with them on a few projects multiple times. Is when to really sinks in…they should make a PATIENTS extension or plug-in. For I know that is my weak spot, in trying not to over look steps or assuming. You make it harder then it already is, Thanks for the tutorial!!..Peace…

I’m missing something, I have a color picker on the select tab and on edit tab, with no pipette in the Texture section. Am I looking in the wrong place?

You need to be in the “Select” mode for the pipette become active. Your screen shot shows that you are in the “Edit” mode.

Thanks pault728 for replying.

I showed Edit mode because I was looking for the “texture dialog” mention by gadget2020. Using the pipette from the select mode copies the color and texture but when I paint with it the original orientation of the texture is applied.

I made a box outside my group, colored, textured and position the texture for horizontal wood grain, the original grain was vertical. Pick and paint returned the grain to vertical.

I’m going to try chamberz’s suggestion, looks promising but painful :wink:

this may help…


Note that it sometimes depends on the viewing angle when you select a rotated texture and when you paint it. And I think it sometimes depends on exactly where on the texture you pick it… you can find that rotated textures don’t behave like you expect/want them to.




Note that the materials within the group/component are still assigned a “default” material: by using the paint bucket, you have just told it that the “default” for this specific group is whatever you paint it with.
If you copy an object that looks coloured from within this group and paste it outside the group (or into another group), you could find that the surfaces will revert to the plain “default” or whatever the default is within the second group.

Thanks gadget2020, it helped somewhat. I was able to duplicate your first two pix, and kinda understand what’s happening, although this is what got me to this topic originally, when I tried this it didn’t work, but that was yesterday and I’ve painted/textured everything using the projected method so I don’t remember for sure what I was doing.

Your third picture references the texture pipette (which I was told is on the select tab), and that changes the texture to the stone.

It is now cocktail hour so it can wait another day.

What helped me was to write out on paper my steps in order and regardless of the out come. Like you I would get one result one time and it would not duplicate the next time. For me I just think I am trying to remember so many little but needed aspects of all the tools collectively, you get a brain fart. Until you do it over and over CORRECTLY a few times. I even took 5 minutes every other day to open the Material browser and repeat the correct steps from the sheet, and seen how quickly I would go back to. Being confused or three or four days not doing it. It was the same with memorizing the key board short cuts.
The ones for the tools are easy, but to remember the tools proper functions on top of hot keys for the Edit and View tab options. It is a lot to take in and with a little frustration from trying to hard does not help either…give it time. …Peace…

[quote=“mrwmrutski, post:13, topic:10068”]
What helped me was to write out on paper my steps in order and regardless of the out come
[/quote]Good idea. My problem has to do with the definitions of all the terms, texture pipette vs color pipette and default colors and textures, haven’t quite grasped those yet.

Same here and without the correct knowledge of them it is twice as hard trying to explain what you are not sure of in the first place. Plus when I worked with a texture again and it (I) fail to do what I wanted. I had on hand the exact steps copied that did work to compare it to. It was me forgetting a step or I was out of sequence with a step. Thankfully it is get less common and I found by slowing down helps also. But in truth it is repetition and practice over time…you will see!! …Peace…