I’m playing with textures in Rhino for the first time. I can figure out martials by layer or object. However, how does one change the orientation of a texture on only one surface. e.g. In the attached pic, changing the grain in the carved upper band from vertical to horizontal.
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Hi CalypsoArt - by default the direction follows the UV of each face - use Dir to swap or reverse the UV directions. However it may be much more controllable and useful to apply a planar or box mapping to the object rather than use the defaults in a case like this - see Help on mapping.
http://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/5/help/en-us/index.htm#properties/texturemapping.htm?Highlight=texture mapping
-Pascal
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Thanks Pascal. I found that myself but really could not understand it. I tried making “channels” and could not find where they were or how to assign. I’m accustomed to the ease of Sketchup’s textures and their manipulation. Is there a video tutorial for Rhino texture mapping?
Hi CalypsoArt - you don’t need to mess with channels for the Rhino renderer - use Channel 1 or whatever is the default.
Here’s a video clip from Brian James - https://vimeo.com/58457893
-Pascal
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Obviously, either no one wants to help you, or they really don’t know. To change the orientation of the texture, it is as simple as: In the object’s properties window, after choosing a texture, select the drop down box at the top (Object, Texture Mapping, materials, etc) and select “texture mapping.” click “add” to add a new channel. Nothing more is needed for that, so don’t let any other buttons confuse you. 
Scroll to “Rotation” section. You will see 3 subsections, X, Y, and Z. Change any one of them to 90 (for 90 degrees) and see if the texture rotates. try each one, resetting the previous to 0, until you get the look you’d like! Hope that helps! Shouldn’t take 6 frickin years to solve this people! Take care!
Thanks for trying. But that does not work for me. It probably has to do with how I assign materials or some such. I get this warning “Some of the assigned material are using WCS/OCS or WCS (Box-style) blah blah blah…” I already glazed over. I don’t speak the language and everything about the lexicon is the opposite of what is obvious in my pencil/marker/paint world. Same with other mind twisters like G0, G2, etc, (I do kinda understand those) WTF is a Brep? I get that Rhino is really an art to math convertor, but for me it’s weak in helping those of us not from the math side of that equation. The last time I pointed that out someone (NOT McNeel crew) felt insulting my tech ignorance would help.
Anyhoo, I have been able to add texture to models making duplicates of a material and setting scale and rotation, then assigning to individual surfaces. Of course I end up with 10-12 versions of the same material in the material palette. That can’t be right, or if it is, it’s pretty stupid? It’s why I almost never do color/texture modeling. After 7 years, Rhino is a gray program for me unless adding solid colors that don’t need variations. Thanks again.
All materials from the Rhino material library will default to WCS texture mapping for any textures in the material (world coordinate system, like box mapping but based on model units). If you change the texture settings in the material to Mapping Channel 1 it’ll use whatever the object’s texture mapping settings are set to. Or you can click the text link in the object’s texture mapping settings to automatically change to mapping channel 1 for all textures when you see that message about using WCS. You’ll still need to adjust the repeat after that in the material’s textures most likely as well after that. Once the texture is using surface mapping, you can use the UVeditor command to rotate one surface’s “UV” mesh which is what controls the direction the texture flows.
Here are some other more recent videos I’ve made on texture mapping that may help…
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Thanks Brian. I have been through the first video before. I’ll have to research and create a glossary of terms in the second. So many I’ve never heard. 
I will give this a try again. Is there somewhere I can download those two models for my practice so I can verify I’m getting the same results?
The sneaker model is in the Help menu > Learn Rhino > Sample models. It’s a little different in that I think I made some of the SubD’s into meshes and NURBS polysrfs for the video just to have a variety of types. The important part is the concepts not so much the model. Start with a box polysrf (use ConvertExtrusion on it if it is an extrusion object) and assign a wood material from the library. Then convert the material’s texture to mapping channel 1 instead of WCS and edit the UVs for the box in the UVeditor command to change the grain direction on specific sides.
Im trying to change the mapping angle of one surface on an object only. i.e. a corrugated roof where the same object has corrugation running at perpendicular angles. Is it possible?
Open the UVeditor for that polysrf and rotate the island for that surface. Unless you are using WCS mapping for the texture in the assigned material, this should do what you’ve described.
