Hi again, I am looking to try to do more realistic wood grain textures and wondering if there are any good extensions out there to help me with this? I know how to add textures and colours direct from SketchUp but I am looking for something more realistic? Not sure where to even start?
Any help would of course be appreciate! Basically stearing me in some sort of direction.
Thanks again!
Jay
Extensions ainât in it. Youâll want to look for or take decent images of real wood to import as textures. I use images of full length boards so the texture images are typically between 8 and 14 feet long depending on species. I usually make four or five textures from a log so I have plenty of wood for a model.
You will need to do some editing of the images in an image editor but thatâs usually not very complicated.
You make your own? Do you stitch multiple pictures together to cover that length of board?
Iâve done one or two of my own textures, but starting to look around at pre-made ones from other sources. Keeping track of which ones came from where and the license restrictions attached to them makes me wonder about managing your library after a while.
Free textures are all over the internet - a good google or pinterest search will usually turn up something workable in a bind.
If you have cash - Arroway offers some nice high quality textures and I think they do offer a few free testers.
If you can track it down - V-Ray used to offer a bunch of free textures (that included nice maps) somewhere on their website.
Some product manufacturers also offer maps to match their products. Reckli has a bunch of nice textures if you ever need to do some concrete work.
Yes I make my own and no, they arenât stitched together. Each texture is made from a single image of a single board.
It seems most people are expecting seamless textures which is why most wood grain textures are so awful. I donât want seamless wood grain textures, though. I want them to look like they came from trees. You canât do texturing of wood like this with those little square texture images you commonly find.
Textures.com (My personal favorite):
Make a free account and you can download 15 free textures per day. It doesnât sound like a lot, but it adds up if you use the website frequently.
poliigon.com:
For higher quality textures, you can go to poliigon.com. I think it costs money though after your one month free trial⌠or something like that. I only have one day left on my trialâŚ
Google Images:
You can also google seamless textures, like âseamless wood textureâ should bring some good results up.
3D warehouse:
Thereâs also the 3D warehouse. You can click on the materials to download textures. Honestly, the 3D Warehouse is probably the best option.
Twilight Render V2:
This is a free extension to add some reflectivity and stuff to your materials in renders.
All you need is to make an accound (free) and youâll be able to download up to 15 textures per dayâŚ
Nice. So, do you take a board and photograph all six faces to get face, edge and end grain? These would be unfinished boards, I assume? I bring it up because I used all clear douglas fir for interior doors and trim in my house, finished with clear, oil based polyurethane. The color is deeper with oil based than water based or unfinished state, so the best way to get that look would be to photograph a finished piece of the wood, not an unfinished one.
No. Just the wide face. I can usually pick out parts of the board to use for the edges and fake the end grain by manipulating the face grain a bit. I donât find it worthwhile making end grain images to apply to boards. It usually donât show much anyway.
I start with unfinished wood and if I want to make the wood look like it has been stained or otherwise colored, I make adjustments in an image editor. In some cases I might have the same wood grain images with different âfinishesâ applied. For example the pine textures in that Swedish bench are raw wood but I have versions that are more golden as if thereâs a clear oil-based finish applied. I used that on this deaconâs bench.
FWIW, some of the textures I use are hand-drawn, too. The plywood texture on these chairs was drawn by hand. The texture is 48 x 96 inches so I can pick out different parts of it as desired. I do have some plywood edge materials, too.
In this case Iâm not really trying for absolute realism but it sure beats the same 12 in. square pattern being repeated across a large surface.
WOW!!! Nice work Dave!! Thanks everyone!!
Jay
I have been playing around with textures and I downloaded a few wood textures from textures.com. Is there a way to get the textures a little more clear or is this just natural when I have to resize to fit on a piece of furniture?
Thanks again your tips have been very helpful!!
Jay
The resolution of the image you are importing has a lot to do with it. Make sure you enable large textures in Preferences>OpenGL.
How are you resizing the images to fit on your furniture?
The images I use are nearly always larger than the component and I can pick out different parts of the texture for different parts in the model. The deaconâs bench was textured with some lovely wide pine boardsâŚ
I did this back in November describing how I create new textures in SketchUp.
Hi Dave, this is how I rezize. This is a 72" sofa table so I just resized like I thought would work and then I just position the textures etc etc
This not right??
Thank you!
watching your video now Dave! This looks very helpful!!!
Jay
How big was the texture image when you inserted it? Iâm sure the original board isnât 42 in. wide. It looks to me as if you just changed the dimension of the texture to match the length of your table⌠That results in scaling. The look isnât too bad on that piece but it isnât really right, either.
Gotta step out, I will finish your video Dave as I think its going to really help me!!!
Thanks again!!
Jay
The size shown in Photoshop doesnât necessarily reflect the real size of the board or boards that were photographed. Yours looks like a wood floor image and if the boards are 2 in. wide, that might be close to the size. Scaling it up will result in the grain being unnatural in size and of course itâll reduce the resolution making it look blurry.
You might also try reading through this post by Jeff Branch. He does some great work with textures (and learned a lot from @DaveR!) Finding, Making, and Using SketchUp Textures | SketchUp Blog
Fantastic discussion and texture images, Dave! It probably goes off-topic but what do you use for lighting/rendering in the images you posted in this thread? Itâs too sophisticated for SUâs âShadowsâ settings. Whatever it is it has a lot to do with how realistic your textures appear.
Thanks, Matt
