Shading Variations Between Original Materials and Their Copies

[kwhitt]

I've been creating some wood materials for my cabinet designs.  When I try to make a copy of the original wood material and apply it to one of my doors to create variation in the grain, the overall appearance of the material gets darker than the original even though the texture maps and property settings are the same for all materials.  In the attached image, I have left 5 of the inset slab doors with the original material.  I copied this original material 5 times so that I could "move" the grain around to create some randomness (using the "Adjust Material Definition" tool and changing the horizontal and vertical offsets).  The copies are consistently darker.  When I try to replace the original material with yet another copy, I have the same problem.  It must have something to do with the fact that the slab doors that hold the material copies are selected outside the defaults (which is the only method by which I can assign a unique material in the first place).  Has anyone else run into this before?  I suppose the solution is to keep making copies of the original material and assign them to unique doors until all the materials are darker and the original is gone, but that is so much more work than just randomizing a few of them.  The file is attached if anyone has any interest or explanation as to why it works this way.

shading variation.zip

[rgardner]

Are you applying the new texture with the paint tool and combining the two textures instead of replacing the texture?

[kwhitt]

9 hours ago, rgardner said:

Are you applying the new texture with the paint tool and combining the two textures instead of replacing the texture?

Ryan - thanks for the reply.  No, that's not the case.  You can use the "Adjust Material Definitions" tool and see that they are unique materials.  I did some more experimenting with different render styles and the problem persists - attached is the PBR.

[Alaskan_Son]

Your problem doesn't seem to have anything to do with differences between the original material and its copies.  Rather, its a problem with the cabinet symbol itself and its apparent problem with consistently applying the Normal Map across the entire object.  Remove the assigned Normal Maps and the problem goes away, OR paint everything the same material and you'll see that the problem persists.  I suggest you report the problem to Technical Support.

[SNestor]

@kwhitt - I really think most of the variation is due to lighting. In the screen clip below I've add some "lights" to the scene...and most of the variation disappears. The cabinet doors on the right I created...and painted with the material from your cabinet doors. I'm not an expert on "rendering"...so, I could be all wrong on this. 

 

 

[kwhitt]

41 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Your problem doesn't seem to have anything to do with differences between the original material and its copies.  Rather, its a problem with the cabinet symbol itself and its apparent problem with consistently applying the Normal Map across the entire object.  Remove the assigned Normal Maps and the problem goes away, OR paint everything the same material and you'll see that the problem persists.  I suggest you report the problem to Technical Support.

Michael - you are correct.  It is the normal map.  Thanks for troubleshooting this.  I'll report it.

[kwhitt]

31 minutes ago, SNestor said:

@kwhitt - I really think most of the variation is due to lighting. In the screen clip below I've add some "lights" to the scene...and most of the variation disappears. The cabinet doors on the right I created...and painted with the material from your cabinet doors. I'm not an expert on "rendering"...so, I could be all wrong on this. 

 

 

Hi Steve.  There's definitely a problem.  Did you make copies of the material and assign to different door fronts?  It's this replication that causes the problem and Michael found the issue.  Thanks.

[SNestor]

@kwhitt - yep, Michael got it. I don't know a thing about "maps"...so, I probably should not have even tried.