More realistic masonry opening texture alignments please!

JP

Hi all,

Nothing spoils realism like a masonry texture that has no relation to a window or door opening. In the real world, a whole or half brick would define the edge of a masonry opening. Yet so many scene designers release products where the grout joint might be 1" from the edge of the opening. It does not look believable and will never be built like that. Think as a mason worker would. A mason worker won't go through the effort of cutting a brick in half vertically below the window sill. They would define the openings with whole bricks.

It is easy to achieve in 3ds Max by modeling the openings in 8 or 4" increments horizontally. For vertical openings model them in 8" increments. Three brick courses = 8". One CMU course = 8". One CMU = 16" long and a typical brick is 8" long. There are also 12" brick units but the most common is 8".

As an example look at Apartment Laundry Room. It looks like a great scene. But this product would be so much better with more realistic masonry units and openings.

https://www.daz3d.com/apartment-laundry-room

Many ceiling or floor tiles are not the right size in some products. Or the texture and bump map scale is wrong making the product look fake.

Brick openings have whole or half bricks at the corners.

 

synechodus_b7d65b3411

I am sure it is an issue with detail. If the product is a small vignette I would expect all of the props and their texturing to be top class and have the details you suggest. If you are buying a prop of a whole building or street, it would not be possible for this level of detail across the whole model, so these assets sometimes look really poor in close up renders. Some natural (desert, forest) assets have a low detail large area and a high detail section for closeups- I would love it is more makers did that will built environments too.

richardandtracy

It's a problem, I acknowledge that. There are many/lots of seamless CC0 brick textures that are very efficient to use. The problem is texmapping these around the joint so they look right. Having a seamed texture usually requires a much bigger texture for the same level of detail. That's much easier to get right. But takes more time to Tex map properly too. Scale of the texmap is very hard to get right if using seamed textures - you need to get it right from when the first pixel is drawn. Less hard with seamless textures because you simply tile the image more or less.

Don't forget that different parts of the world have different brick sizes, so being didactic about that is a recipe for disappointment.

In the UK the Victorians standardized on an imperial brick + mortar size of 9"L x 4.5"W x 3"H, with a 3/8" to 1/2" mortar thickness included . Metric bricks in the UK are 225x112x75mm including 10mm mortar.

Where I live, in a worked-out brick producing area, I have come across old bricks up to 12" long and 5" wide. 10 years ago my wife and I dismantled a building on an 1880 map of the area and found it was made from wasters, the dodgy bricks that couldn't be sold. And some that came from an earlier building still. Those bricks were incredibly hard to use in the new building we put up using the bricks. Then there are the fancy oversized 'rubbers' which were designed to be rubbed to the right size for special purposes. And window cills were often cast from concrete in situ to the size the builder knocked up on the day, and they don't match the courses of the brickwork. In my last Victorian house I cast two window cills using the same methods. Very satisfying, and it meant the cill fitted a very non-standard aperture.

Basically, there's as much sloppy workmanship in real buildings as in the models of them.

Regards,

Richard.

JP

richardandtracy said:

It's a problem, I acknowledge that. There are many/lots of seamless CC0 brick textures that are very efficient to use. The problem is texmapping these around the joint so they look right. Having a seamed texture usually requires a much bigger texture for the same level of detail. That's much easier to get right. But takes more time to Tex map properly too. Scale of the texmap is very hard to get right if using seamed textures - you need to get it right from when the first pixel is drawn. Less hard with seamless textures because you simply tile the image more or less.

Don't forget that different parts of the world have different brick sizes, so being didactic about that is a recipe for disappointment.

In the UK the Victorians standardized on an imperial brick + mortar size of 9"L x 4.5"W x 3"H, with a 3/8" to 1/2" mortar thickness included . Metric bricks in the UK are 225x112x75mm including 10mm mortar.

Where I live, in a worked-out brick producing area, I have come across old bricks up to 12" long and 5" wide. 10 years ago my wife and I dismantled a building on an 1880 map of the area and found it was made from wasters, the dodgy bricks that couldn't be sold. And some that came from an earlier building still. Those bricks were incredibly hard to use in the new building we put up using the bricks. Then there are the fancy oversized 'rubbers' which were designed to be rubbed to the right size for special purposes. And window cills were often cast from concrete in situ to the size the builder knocked up on the day, and they don't match the courses of the brickwork. In my last Victorian house I cast two window cills using the same methods. Very satisfying, and it meant the cill fitted a very non-standard aperture.

Basically, there's as much sloppy workmanship in real buildings as in the models of them.

Regards,

Richard.

Hi Richard,

I agree, bricks come in all sizes. 

But 3D props do not have to be specific to UK or USA. All that needs to happen is the mortar joints should look realistic. Artists should just pick whatever dimension they want to run with and make it happen.

An easy solution would be to construct buildings, walls, and openings in increments of 8", 10" or 12". Or whatever brick size they want to run with. That's how architects design buildings. The seamless texture should be proportioned to match.

I have produced 3D architectural renderings where it is easy to have seamless textures work in 3ds Max. The walls are in 8" increments. In 3ds Max, there is an option to position the UVM Gizmo to the corner of a wall in horizontal and vertical positions. It works great and the walls look realistic with believable mortar joints and masonry openings. 3D assets that have fake mortar joints with bricks or cmus cut in weird locations do not look believable and make them unsuitable for rendering work. For example, a whole course of brick that's cut in half vertically. That would never happen in the real world because the masons would have to go and cut each brick. Too much work and cost for the client. A brick can be cut here and there but a whole row, not a chance unless due to bad design.

Another gripe is texturing with heavy bump mapping that is way off the scale to the real world. Those textures look busy and detract from the subjects. Artists should tone down the bumping / scale and really study the real world to try and mimic reality.

JP

synechodus_b7d65b3411 said:

I am sure it is an issue with detail. If the product is a small vignette I would expect all of the props and their texturing to be top class and have the details you suggest. If you are buying a prop of a whole building or street, it would not be possible for this level of detail across the whole model, so these assets sometimes look really poor in close up renders. Some natural (desert, forest) assets have a low detail large area and a high detail section for closeups- I would love it is more makers did that will built environments too.

It is possible, so long as every wall and opening is modeled in brick dimensions, and the seamless textures are of the same proportion. In 3ds Max a UV Map can be scaled so a single brick in a seamless texture is exactly the size of whatever brick dimension you decide to go with. This is one feature DAZ3D should add: An UV Map Gizmo that can be scaled and positioned precisely relative to the 3D Object.