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Texture map Copy attributes


Andrew West

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Ever since I switched to version 8 I have had a lot of inconsistent errors when copying material attributes between objects.  This tool is probably the single most time efficient tool that Form.z came out with in all its years.  Texture mapping one object and then copying attributes has saved me thousands of hours of work in my career.  That came to a halt after version 7.     I can copy the material from one object to another but not the scale and orientation of the map.  The problem seems to be that I am using someone's Revit model.  If I create my own geometry I can copy attributes between objects.  But not with a Revit model.  Perhaps I am missing something here that may be too obvious for my old brain.  In the mean time to get this project out by Monday I am going back to 6.7 yet again.  It works properly on their model in the old version.

 

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Andrew, I know what you mean. Even after following Rob's suggestion, the tool doesn't always work right. And yes, it's a crap shoot.

To illustrate that V.8 does not copy texture maps as correctly as the old 6.7.  I have used an ftp account to send a file for each version to tech support.   Try to use the copy attributes tool on each and see what happens.  The reason that I had to use Hightail.com  to send is that the v.8 file is 41 megs and the 6.7 file is 1.4 megs.  Why?  Perhaps tech can weigh in on how v.8 became so intolerant and quirky when importing and using other peoples Revit models. 

 

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One thing I have noticed is that if there is any mixing of materials on an object then it will not work correctly. Create a cube. Texture some of the faces with a texture but leave some with the default material. Map the texture with a cubic map. Create another cube. Paint it with a color other than default.

 

If you copy the attribute of Cube 01 to Cube 02, the mapping will be copied, but all the faces of Cube 02 will now have the Default Color of Cube 01 and not the textured material.

 

If all of the face of Cube 01 are textured then the texture will be copied correctly, however if even one of them has the "plain" color it wil not. If Cube 01 has all faces textured but with two different textures, then Cube 02 will wind up being textured with one of the textures although I have had situations where it still "copied" the default color and neither of the textures.

 

Mapping is copied correctly (ie... If the texture of Cube 01 is cubic mapped relative to the centre of Cube 01 then Cube 02 will be cubic mapped relative to the centre of Cube 01) But both textures are not carried over, jus one of them.

 

Just a few things I've noticed...

 

Doug

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Doug

I have noticed that as well but it has never really been a big issue for me.  A greater concern has been the relative inconsistency of the texture mapping tool as it is applied to certain objects.  Really slows me down as I need to check each piece and fuss over its material and alignment.

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Andrew,

We investigated your file, and some of our own files, and found the Copy Attributes tool operates the same in formZ 6.7 and 8. The intermittent behavior you are observing is due to texture mapping groups and/or different materials assigned to different faces on the object. If no texture mapping groups exist and/or all the faces use the same material  then the Copy Attributes tools works as expected. If the objects contain texture mapping groups and/or different materials then formZ will try to match the different materials and texture mapping groups to the other object, which may or may not be possible. The tools needs to decide which material would map to a different face on a different object.

One of the objects in the file you sent us has texture mapping groups. This is why the post from Rob is a good workaround because if you use the Map Texture tool you are clearing the texture mapping groups.

 

In addition our developers will investigate the Copy Attributes tool and see if we can improve these types of conditions.

 
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