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PhotoView 360 Paint Appearance Pack

Question asked by Rob Rodríguez on Jul 21, 2016
Latest reply on Sep 13, 2016 by Dominic Vrolijks Vrolijks

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If you're using PhotoView360 and you are interested in updated "Paint" appearances you might want to have a look at the new offering from PV360X.com These new appearances work and have been tested with SolidWorks 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017

The PV360X Paint Pack features all new paint appearances built from the ground up using the latest features from the PV360 render engine.

Unlike using Modo .lxp assets in PhotoView 360, we've done all the setup so these appearances are fully adjustable within the SOLIDWORKS interface.
All carpaint appearances use a clearcoat finish.
Carpaints offered in plain, gold or silver flake varieties.
Gold and silver flake carpaints can be scaled for more or less flake.
Powdercoat bump is based on a procedural (3D) texture. Never any seams and you can still scale it with the SOLIDWORKS mapping controls.
Specular color (exposed in SOLIDWORKS UI) drives your reflection color, allowing you to create some truly unique looks!

Find out more here PV360X

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Paul Salvador Jul 21, 2016 6:42 PM
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Rob,.. can we edit, create and save our own *.lxp assets using this tool?

..that is, will we have edit/access to "clear coat"... and other *.lxp features or.. ?

..or maybe.. are these colors you have created in Modo and are packaging them.. we can only change the colors?

BTW: is Modo the ONLY tool available which allows editing/change/saving *.lxp files?
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Rob Rodríguez @ Paul Salvador on Jul 21, 2016 7:37 PM
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Hi Paul,

These have the same settings you can edit as with any other PhotoView360 appearance. We aren't able to add new settings to the PV360 dialog. So, in the case of clear coats, no there is no specific parameter to edit this in PV360 so the clear coat setting will not be editable with these appearances. That said Modo has a schematic, nodal type of way to build appearances and as much as possible we have utilized this feature to build these appearances. That means we've been able to control "hidden" material settings behind the scenes. When you adjust certain PV360 appearance settings. These "hidden" changes happen transparent to the user and are based on what we felt was correct for that specific material.

In a nutshell. PV360 gives you about 11 settings to adjust appearances. That same appearance in an lxp version (used in modo) has about 50 settings. We've adjusted all 50 settings and linked up the ones that made sense to link up (using formula's, etc to control multiple settings with one PV360 setting) with the 11 PV360 settings so the user has more control without more settings. If this doesn't make sense I can try and explain it better

You can adjust any of the appearance settings and save them as a new appearance just like any other PV360 appearance. You aren't really saving an new lxp however. You're saving an new p2m.

They aren't just colors. Bump, procedural textures, special mapping, colors, settings you don't have access to in PV360, etc have all been set specifically for every material so it looks and behaves more realistic than a stock PV360 appearance would.
- You want to change the bump height and/or scale in the powder coat paints...you can do that.
- You want to change the colors for any of the paints,,,,you can do that
- You want to have your gold or silver metallic flake be more or less dense...you can do that
- You want to apply a red carpaint but also give it an orangish hue at certain reflection angles...you can do that.
- You want to change the transparency, diffuse, reflective settings for the materials...you can do that.
- You want to adjust one or a whole bunch of settings and save a new material called Paul's Perfect Purple Powder Coat"....you can do that.
The PV360 appearances were built in 2009 and haven't been upgraded since then. The render engine allows for more sophisticated materials and material controls but SolidWorks hasn't updated the appearances to take advantage of this.

Our goal is to give the user a more realistic material without the user having to do anything special and using the standard PV360 appearance controls. Plans are to do this for all appearances and introduce new appearances for things like "coatings", "packaging", etc. But before we literally build 1000's of appearance we thought we'd start with one category and see if people are interested.

Yes, an LXP file is a modo material preset file and they can only be created, edited, saved in Modo.
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Rob Rodríguez @ Rob Rodríguez on Jul 21, 2016 7:45 PM
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The image above. From left to right

Matte Orange Paint, Dark Blue Gold Metallic, Red Powder Coat, Blue Carpaint, Green Silver Metallic, White Pearl.
All included with the paint pack, all editable. The image above was created in PhotoView360 and the materials were edited in Photoview360 to look "good" in the image.
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Paul Salvador @ Rob Rodríguez on Jul 21, 2016 7:58 PM
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Thanks, appreciate the explanations..
As you or anyone can imagine.. once you start working with and/or using *.lxp assets (which are pretty kewl).. it is so frustrating not being able to edited/tweek them slightly to get what you want/need!?
It seems people like shinny bling (that is, Visualize) so with clearcoat and sparkles.. these should be a good asset in the folder!
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Rob Rodríguez @ Paul Salvador on Jul 21, 2016 8:26 PM
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so frustrating not being able to edited/tweek them slightly to get what you want/need!?

I hear that. Unfortunately that's the way SW has chosen to limit PV360. We are just trying to bend the rules a bit
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Dennis Bacon Jul 21, 2016 9:33 PM
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Thanks for that Rob.. I could use a good brushed stainless steel appearance. Any ideas? I would like to use PV360 to render my model in SW. This model and a much more complex assy which will have painted, brushed stainless, and bright nickel. Do you think I could take a better non reflected photo and make my appearance from it for the brushed stainless or does one exist?
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Rob Rodríguez @ Dennis Bacon on Jul 22, 2016 9:42 AM
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Hi Dennis,

For all metal materials, the way they look is a direct result of the environment reflections. Yes, the material settings do play a role of course but because of the reflective nature of metal the environment and lighting play a huge role in their overall look. The stock brushed steel in PV360 (the new one created a couple years ago) is pretty good.

We have developed some metal materials already and one of them is brushed steel. We also have brushed black oxide and brushed anodized. We noticed because of current PV360 settings limitations the current brushed materials can be grainy and noisier than a user may like. We designed a new method to work with the settings limitations that we think gives a "cleaner" (less grain and noise) look to the brushed metal materials.

If you want to provide me with a model I can render it using our brushed steel material to see how you think it looks.

Rob
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Dennis Bacon @ Rob Rodríguez on Jul 23, 2016 7:34 AM
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Thanks for the input Rob. I have now looked at a couple of tutorials and given this my best shot. Now I have a much better understanding of what you mentioned. I am attaching the upper door only (don't want to give too much away) along with some jpegs so you can get an indication of the grain. The orientation of the .sldprt is actually how this will be represented. I did make my own appearance from a photo and it looked fairly good until I rendered it. Lots of things to take into consideration. I think by just having the one brushed stainless alone raises some challenges. I can make some pretty good renderings with multiple painted colors. Hopefully if you Paul or anyone else who may want to get involved I can extract some ideas. I hope to present some good (photos of on screen) renderings for our web site. It would be this assembly and a much more detailed assembly which will include colors.

Your help is very much appreciated.
Attachments
- DSC00469.zip11.7 MB
- Upper Door for Rendering.zip30.1 KB
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Paul Salvador @ Dennis Bacon on Jul 28, 2016 10:14 PM
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..well, Rob disappeared.. I'll post a render/animation using a online asset "steel_brushed_horizontal.lxp" (the grain this went vertical on me for some reason (arrrggghh!)?.. again. no editing so.. SW Corp gives us half baked tools... NICE!?)
Attachments
- 7000-365-KE Upper Door-CUT(Default)-zxys.mp41.4 MB
- 7000-365-KE Upper Door-CUT(Default)-2016-b-zxys.zip4.0 MB
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Dennis Bacon @ Paul Salvador on Jul 29, 2016 7:40 AM
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Food for thought Paul. I noticed that you have 4 cameras. Is that so you can go from one angle (view point) to another quickly? It seems that I, in my previous excursions in PV360, I was able to turn off the rendering easily in order to manipulate the model without the regeneration. I have forgotten how to do that (or I just imagined it). How do you go about that?

Many thanks for this...
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John Stoltzfus @ Paul Salvador on Jul 29, 2016 8:05 AM
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Applying finishes can be made easy Paul, I actually had to grin when I saw your post, as you're always the one with the great answers and a tremendous help here, very quickly doing stuff for others and to see you stumped..........

The appearances is something I enjoy doing and here I use the wood grains which are very similar to the brushed stainless.

Stay in the Basic Tab

and adjust .......

For starters....... Current view

Adjust here

Grab center box to adjust

Front View

For a more natural appearence with wood I don't make the edges and the yellow line parallel

You could do the same with the brushed Stainless.
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Dennis Bacon @ John Stoltzfus on Jul 29, 2016 8:15 AM
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Nice John. Great info especially with the edges and yellow line. I'm going to have to keep that in mind. Now can you do it with a .lxp?
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John Stoltzfus @ Dennis Bacon on Jul 29, 2016 8:49 AM
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Not sure Dennis - the SW 360 appearances are .p2m and I did do a lot of work with jpegs as well, so if you have a high resolution brushed finish stainless steel jpeg, it should work really well..
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Rob Rodríguez Jul 29, 2016 9:21 AM
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Hi guys,

Sorry for not replying. I've been on vacation this week.

Right Paul, there are limited controls over the lxp materials from the modo site. That's the problem with them. Notice on your image at the top the brushed has an odd look to the texture, like its wrinkly almost. This was the issue i was talking about in earlier posts. we think we have solved that.

I'll download your file Dennis and give it a try. I'll have it ready next week.

John, a picture of brushed steel technically would work but it would have to be a perfectly lit seamless image to be truly usable and that would be very difficult to create. Also because its an image there would be limits to its mapping ability.
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John Stoltzfus @ Rob Rodríguez on Jul 29, 2016 9:23 AM
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Right on Rob - if you have a small picture - won't work on a large pc....
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Paul Salvador @ John Stoltzfus on Jul 29, 2016 10:14 AM
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Morning John,.. thanks for the advise/images.. I wish it was that easy and that I was stumped but unfortunately that only would work for *.p2m files.. and this is a limitation with *.lxp (modo) files.

In this situation, the grain/direction was correct, horizontal, when I first applied it.. then,.. it rotated 90 degs on me just before or after I added a motion/animation?? I had noticed as it was rendering... and, it will NOT rotate back.

I love some of these *.lxp files..
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Paul Salvador @ Dennis Bacon on Jul 29, 2016 8:49 PM
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Dennis,.. yes, the other cameras are for quick viewing.. as for turning off the rendering without regeneration... I guess I don't quite follow.. it would depend on what is buffered or complexity of the scene.. and it would rendering fastest in preview mode (good setting) (or, preview window?)
...and you're wanting to turn off the rendering when changing views, yes, I guess you can toggle in on/off with a key if you want?
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Dennis Bacon @ Paul Salvador on Jul 30, 2016 6:56 PM
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I suppose what I was trying to say is... When you render it looks like you don't render the actual model in the work space but render to an image of your model. is that the way it works? The model itself will never look like the rendering and keep those characteristics. I know you probably find it hard to believe that I could be so ignorant on how this works but I am. I did some work on this by making an appearance file from a photo of the brushed stainless and was somewhat successful. As Rob says the brushed steel would probably work just as well. Just need the reflection , color, shadows,and lighting set up correctly.

This is a tiff image of what I was able to come up with in Visualize. Still haven't gotten it anywhere near right in PV360. It was soundly rejected since it doesn't look like the photos I was given. My time is spread pretty thin at the moment but I'm convinced that if I spent 20 min a day (or every couple of days) looking at tutorials and trial and error I could come up with something. Thanking all of you for your advice.
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Paul Salvador @ Dennis Bacon on Jul 31, 2016 12:21 AM
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Hey Dennis.. I think I understand..you do render your model (interactive) and you can also render to a viewport (preview w/interaction) or a image but it doesn't stay with it.. that is, in a way of quickly accessing it.. it would be, what they call, a baked or buffered scene. (in memory).... or, realview-ish.
ignorant,... sure, we all are,.. and we have to apply time to fiture these things out... and, the image map you have is nice!.. interesting,.. so, you found a tiff from Visualize and applied it to your *.p2m,... correct?.... sweet workaround!
...imho.. over the years,.. applying rendering techiques has become a moving target.. each scene, material, object(s).. have new challenges.. .. yes, applying more time gives you a better more real looking image. I don't see a way around it.. maybe, render massaging.. is the best way to describe it?
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Rob Rodríguez @ John Stoltzfus on Aug 3, 2016 10:08 AM
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Hi Dennis,

Here is a quick render with our brushed stainless steel. It still needs some work. I'm not sure its any better than the default brushed steel included with SW? I'll adjust the material and see what we can come up with.

Brushed Steel Test Part
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Paul Salvador @ Rob Rodríguez on Aug 3, 2016 2:50 PM
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Rob,.. not bad.. I did another on the 31st (was waiting for yours).. again, using a lxp.. "Stainless Steel Brushed.lxp" (again, no control)..
Attachments
- 2016-b-zxys.zip3.3 MB
- 2016-b-zxys.mp41.6 MB
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Rob Rodríguez @ Paul Salvador on Aug 3, 2016 3:40 PM
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Hi Paul,

I'd say the 2 are similar. I like yours better. Your second looks much better then the first. My guess is.......the 2nd one you used and the one I used have a similar technique to creating the brushed lines. Because PV360 hides some settings, how you create the brushed lines greatly effects the clarity with which they show (both still and animation). I suppose the greatest difference is. Mine is fully controllable with the PV360 controls and the lxp you used in not. as you know, lxp's are hit or miss. The control you have over them in PV360 is directly related to how they were built in Modo.

rob
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Paul Salvador @ Rob Rodríguez on Aug 3, 2016 9:50 PM
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Thanks Rob. btw,.. (anyone).. is there a SPR for getting TOTAL EDIT control of the LXP files?
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Rob Rodríguez @ Paul Salvador on Aug 4, 2016 10:52 AM
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There would be no SPR because SW doesn't feel there is an issue. It's was/is intended to work this way. The only way to be able to have full control over the lxp file is for SW to give you access to those settings. That will never happen. In fact I don't believe its even a simple thing to do (give access to all the settings) because of the interaction between p2m and lxp files. That "cross talk" makes things more difficult. SW has a p2m data base for all appearances (in SW...OGL and RV) and those p2m files feed data to the lxp for use in PhotoView.
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Paul Salvador @ Rob Rodríguez on Aug 4, 2016 5:58 PM
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(no spr, no control, p2m data links,..)... ok,.. got it,.. it's was always intended as crippleware and the dependency on modo as a editor. geez.

..I've been reading on other preset paks coming out from modo, mostly interior materials... but, it's another dependency.

Also, doing searches on p2m/lxp materials,., there is really NOTHING on the SW Community being interested in sharing materials files... or refining materials.
I guess I don't understand why this community is not interested,.. other render communities have much more support and resources.

btw,... although I appreciate the PV360 material pak you and Ron are selling,.. I'm confused...it seems now, Ron maybe working for SW Corp ..helping with Visualize?,.. are you not undercuting your own interest for PV360... and/or it may border on a grey conflict of interest?
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