My first bird table

[Goonster]

Here is a couple of images of a slate roofed bird table I made. I`m really getting to enjoy woodworking in SU . Rendered using Shaderlight with a bit of post processing in Paint.Net.

[Dave R]

That looks pretty realistic. Better watch out or you'll have birds trying to get into your computer.

[Goonster]

Thanks Dave. I want to try a slightly more complex one next time. As I work in a garden center I get to see plenty of different styles and I can examine them close up. For example I noticed today that I made a mistake with this one. The braces at the bottom of the stand should be slightly narrower and not the same width as the feet. I`ll bear that in mind with the next one.

[Dave R]

Details, details.

You should correct the wood grain direction on the feet and the diagonal braces as well as on the sides of the tray while you're at it, though.

[jarynzlesa]

nice and realistic, good post process, agree with dave - repair texture mapping. good job .

[Krisidious]

so you're saying that's not real? I had to study it...

[David_H]

shouldn't it read. . ."Home, Tweet Home?"

[Goonster]

I hadn`t thought about the woodgrain. Good point Dave R. I suppose that would be achieved by rotating the various different parts when using the bucket tool . It`s so obvious . Thanks for the tip.

Thanks jarynzlesa & Krisidious. I upped the bump map setting a bit when using Shaderlight on this one which I think helped a lot as well.

And of course - Home TWEET Home! Why did I not think of that.

[Gaieus]

First of all, you need to separate the faces where it should go horizontally (otherwise the vertical faces would get a horizontal grain, too).

Then right click on a horizontal face > Texture > Position > right click again and > Rotate (90 or 270 degrees).

Once you are one with one face, just Press the Alt key when using the Paint tool (it will turn into a sampler) and sample the positioned material and go through all the other faces with the Paint tool (release the Alt key of course). It can be done in a couple of minutes.

The slanting part is similar - just there you cannot use the rotate command but grab the green pin while in texture positioning and rotate the texture by that.

[Dave R]

As Gai says, you'll use Texture>Position>Rotate but it does require that you've applied the material to the faces and not just to the components/groups. If you apply materials without opening components/groups for editing, you won't have the option to rotate the material.

Also if, for example the diagonal braces are instances of the same component, applying the material to the faces of one, will cause them all to be painted. And if you change the axes so that they are aligned with the part, i.e. red axis along the length of the part, the material may go on cross ways as it did on some of the other surfaces but you'll be able to rotate 90° as you would on other parts because the material orientation will be relative to the component's axes.

[Gaieus]

True, I did not think of group/component materials. Looking at the model, the material could even be applied to them indeed.

[Goonster]

Thanks for mentioning that. I never realized you could rotate the texture.All this time I`ve had SU and I`m still learning new things. I`ve been getting used to adjusting the texture on a quickly knocked up bit of wood . I`ll try it out on the stand later.

[Dave R]

Remember the thing about changing the component axes on the diagonal pieces, too. There are other benefits besides ease of applying materials.

[Goonster]

Here are the revised textures -

[Dave R]

Looks good. Not to bust your chops but you missed adjusting the material orientation on a face on the diagonal braces. Are you using a wood floor material? There's a horizontal line on the corner posts and it shows up on the foot as well.

For the end grain you might make a copy of the material and then stretch it slightly, lengthwise only, and rotate it so it runs a bit diagonally. It won't be perfect but it will look more like end grain without much work.

[Goonster]

I just checked the skp file again and I definitely adjusted all the faces. You`re right, I did use a floor texture though. Maybe that`s what is causing the problem. I`ll have to try a different wood texture , one that`s not a floor texture.

[Dave R]

I guess there's not a lot of surface area but the parallel dark lines on the faces indicated by the arrows look like the long edges of the planks in the wood texture.

[Gaieus]

Yes, this is it, much better. Just a couple of faces left to adjust the material on and it's a perfect model.

[Goonster]

How`s this?

[Dave R]

That's better. How about the feet? Did you draw them as separate from the cross pieces? Looks like the grain is running vertically on them.

Most people probably have no good idea of which way the grain should run and wouldn't notice these sorts of things anyway.

[Goonster]

Yes the feet were done separately. On bird tables I see at work it varies . Some feet are different to others. I put the grain vertically in this case to differentiate them from the cross pieces.

I think you are right though. It`s not something most people make a point of noticing.

[Dave R]

If I were building something like this, I wouldn't make the feet with the grain running vertical. They'll wick up moisture and rot more quickly. Of course maybe the manufacturers do that intentionally with the thought that folks will buy another one when that happens.

[Goonster]

Believe me when you see some of the poor quality wood they use, preventing a bit of moisture is the last thing on their minds!

[Dave R]

You ought to build better ones and sell them there.

[Goonster]

Yes - then I`d be able to afford the Pro version of SU!