Rhino Tutorial: Setting Materials In Rhino, 3D Modeling

This tutorial will go over the basics of setting materials in rhino. Setting Materials in Rhino can be useful in creating simple rhino renderings as well as creating higher quality renderings using plugins such as octane.

Before we begin, first save a texture in the JPEG format, that you want to use for your model. When searching for textures adding the word “seamless” to the search will help you find a texture that seamlessly connect to itself. If you cannot find a seamless texture, It is best to use Adobe Photoshop to multiply the texture’s size until it is around the size of the object you wish to apply the texture to, by wither using the clone stamp tool to spread out the texture or by using the clone stamp tool to erase the seams after duplicating the texture.

After obtaining a good texture you first want to open the material editor by clicking Panels>Material Editor. This will open the material panel. Then click the new material button and choose a texture from the files that is most similar to the texture you want to use. In my case I will select stone since I will be using a brick texture.

After crating a preset rhino material, change the existing texture by selecting the carrot circled above and selecting your new texture.

Apply the texture to an object by selecting the object and then changing the assigned material from by layer to object and then selecting our new material. You can also drag the material to the layer that the object is on to change all object material to your new material on that layer.

Often times you will find that you texture is not immediately the right scale for your object. You can change the scale of the texture by selecting the third tab in the properties section and choosing a texture mapping type. In my case I will be using a square mapping type since I am doing a rectangular object.

Select the box mapping and draw a box roughly the size of your object. this will initially slightly change the scale of the texture and also change how some of the texture is orientated on the object.

To edit the scale of the texture one muse first click the show mapping button.

You can scale this box using regular rhino commands such as scale. The bigger the box is the larger the texture is and vice versa. You can also edit the scale by altering the XYZ size numbers.

Finally hide the mapping with the hide mapping button to complete the process.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful!