Rough looking beams and posts

[Treehouse2339]

I am designing a mountain home with different rough wood surfaces.  Beams, posts and siding.  Is there a way to achieve this type of finish on those materials?

[Treehouse2339]

That’s the idea but want the board and batt siding really rough as well as the beams and posts.

[Alaskan_Son]

I think you'll probably find that one of the easiest and most effective methods is going to be simply changing your material definition but the best method here depends a bit on the rendering technique you're using.  Here's a start though:

 

1. Pick a material that has a decent looking grain pattern.  It doesn't have to be the same wood material that you ultimately want to use, it just needs to have a good grain pattern.  Let's just use the standard Cedar material from the core catalog.
2. Open the Define Material dialog for that Cedar material, click in the Texture tab, and copy the Texture Source file path.  It should look something like C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Chief Architect Premier X12 Data\Templates\TemplateTextures.zip#zip:SolidCedarNaturalDC18.jpg
3. Select a material that looks more like the one you actually want to display in your plan. Let's just use the standard Fir material from the core catalog.
4. Open the Define Material dialog for that Fir material, click on the Texture tab, and paste the previously copied Texture Source file path into the Bump Map File field.
5. Play with the Scale and/or Invert settings till you get the look you're after.

Sometimes you can use a Texture Source and Bump Map that match, but using a different file source tends to create a more realistic hand scraped/machined look in my opinion.  You just have to play with it. 

[Rich_Winsor]

If you don't want to roll your own (so to speak)

Chief has some distressed and rustic materials

available in their Bonus Catalogs. You might 

have a play with them and see if you can find

something useful there.