is there a way that the texture stays put when i join as either a subobject mapping or that it creates an entire texture mapped accordingly?
before anybody suggests using subobject texturing on a joined object, i have huge issues with getting textures to align, so i am often mapping the surfaces separately because that is at least managable without having to trial and error for an hour…
before join
after join
keep texture join.3dm (3.0 MB)
For this you would typically use UV Unwrapping, did you try that?
hi @Gijs sorry i have no understanding how that should work, i tried unwrap ( i believe which is what you meant since there is no uv unwrap which i could find) before, joining and/or after joining but the material gets lost and it joines into one solid material. how would i do that?
hi @BrianJ unfortunately not as described above.
if this is not possible maybe there is a chance joining and keeping the texture/materials where they are in a future version.
Okay, my mistake, I am not understanding your question fully. In your sample there are no texture maps only materials assigned with a solid color. Assigning sub-object materials is the way to have separate materials on a joined object. There are some things that don’t work yet like SubD sub-object materials and use of multiple mapping channels on sub-objects of a polysrf but those are filed for the developers already.
i simply used a cube with some material to showcase the problem.
there is unfortunately no seperate mapping for subsurface at least i could not find it, and finding a ratio and a scale that works is a battle in general, so i often use either picture or rebuild surfaces and drag and drop the material/texture on directly which increases the workflow immensely. like for instance modeling a cardboard with waves on one side and layers on the other.
now sometimes its ok if the model stays open but for glass parts if you need some local bump and what not having to join the surfaces back together is imperetive of course, resulting in all the tedious work lost and having distorted materials, textur.
Reported here
I have added this topic to the issue.
Until then subobject assignment of materials is the only way to go.
thanks @nathanletwory following the tracker and reading through the initial request which is 9 years old now i am a bit late to the party…
i would not mind jumping through the hoops of subobject, but that does not even bring me there.
below when i create a texture in advance which is not all that intuitiv, i would love simply dragging the texture onto the subselected surface from the finder or from the prepared materials at least, then this happens as shown below, the texture is rather naughty though the ratio is the same. how am i supposed to fix that on a subselected surface? what i do then is either explode and fix it manually (having to switch to all sorts of mappings twist rotate scale i am already giving up at that point only to find out when i somehow coincidentally manage to get the mapping somewhere there that after joining it does whatever it wants after all.
here the material
here the file
more texture talks.3dm (3.0 MB)
You have a couple of options:
sometimes i cant change the texture in the texture settings because i use it on different parts where i need slightly adjusted values, meddling with the texture then screws up the other established surfaces… i can of course create a new texture ouf ot the same material each time which i often do… but that clutters up the space enormously when i have big files.
here the problem is that when i did that on one side it messes up the 2nd when i apply that once more, there is no option to map for subselected that i can see.
here i tried to add a scond side with a different texture.
so all that meddling is of course very tirying, and to get finished i then just literally explode 
at least the surfaces…
UV mappings are the way to go then, that way you don’t have to create new materials for different parts.
Also, in your test file you are using picture material. It is better to create a PBR material instead, so that you can actually control on what channel the texture goes - although the mapping channel 1 should be good enough.
@BrianJ has videos on uv mapping that should help you a lot.
edit: here a couple in an older post Change Texture/material orientation on a surface? - #7 by BrianJ
yes i just used a picture for showcasing. i do not fully understand how uv mapping works its not very inuitiv and looks like chowing down on a lot of time… but i am currently looking into it once more.
so in that case i have to create one single image as a texture which contains the entire scope of textures i want to wrap around one object, and then rotate and bring in line all the UV tiles with the help of UVEditor?
If you apply several planar mappings you can have different materials with each one image. Jusy set each image to be on a different mapping channel - corresponding to planar mappings you create.
I am sure @BrianJ can create a short video on that.
cool, that is what i wanted to ask befor but got lost, i will try with several mappings. thanks nathan
Hi @encephalon Here’s an example file showing the use of different Planar mapping channels for sub-object faces on a polysrf. Note that you need to set up the mapping channels when the whole object is selected and then specify the mapping channel to use for a given texture in it’s properties within the material.
MultiMap_SubObject_Materials.3dm (370.7 KB)
I kind of agree with @encephalon here. Maybe there should be a way of painting a material on each face and be able to manipulate (rotating/scaling/stretchinh) the texture of each face intuitively with like a gizmo or gumball instead of going into the uv editor. Most of the people don’t need to know how to use it. (It’s good that it’s there btw) SketchUp comes to mind when thinking about this feature as they have done it very well.
Hi Egon,
some thoughts to your first post. General it’s good to know that Rhino use different basic modes - general the texture is following the surface UV and additional it can be “packed” so that each surface of a polysurface show an other part of the texture.
Two commands I use often:
All other mapping modes than “surface” overwrite the default mapping of the surfaces and add different type of projections.
