Chief's 5 piece doors and drawerfronts: how do they get woodgrain directions single step and mine need two

[GeneDavis]

I wanted 5 piece drawerfronts all drawers below the top slab, and wanting less-wide rails than the stiles, made my own with solids.  My drawer stiles are one material, the rails and center panel another.  I did this so if I want a natural wood finish, I can get the grain displayed in 3D the way I want.

 

You can see that I get stile/rail delineation just like the blind cab adjacent at left has.  That cabinet door is from the OOB Chief library.  My drawerfront, if I use the same library material "red oak - natural" for my two materials in the drawerfront, the stiles, and the rail-panel-rail group, comes out like shown in the pic with woodgrain.  If I go to the blind corner cab to the left and open for spec, I'll get see one material set for the frame of the door and one for the panel.  Assigning wood to the frame results in proper wood graining.  

 

What is the difference between Chief's symbol and mine?

[DBCooper]

Did you use one solid for the drawer front, or 5?  I think you need to use 5 in order to make it work right. 

 

Also, you might need to assign different materials to the different pieces if you want more control over them when you convert it into a symbol.  For example, you may need to assign one material to the panel and then use a different one to the stiles and rails.  You may even need to use two different ones for the stiles and rails so they don't get merged together.

 

This tech article has a lot more info but it doesn't really say much about how to keep the materials separate for each piece:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01808/creating-a-custom-door.html

 

Edited May 3 by DBCooper

[GeneDavis]

Hi @DBCooper and yes, I made the drawerfront symbol from five separate 3D solids, and painted the upright rails one color, and the others (which in the real world of cabinetmaking) a second color.  So I have a two-color symbol which shows when I open my cab for spec and go to materials.

 

The pic I showed upthread in the OP of the drawerfronts woodgrained appear that way because I did not make a copy of Chief's red oak natural and rename the copy "R" which is what I do when I rotate a directional texture like woodgrain, to use for my second color.

 

But my curiosity is bubbling over how a Chief symbol for a five piece stile and rail and panel door is coded so that the door (also two colors, one for "door" and the other for "panel") gets the grain horizontal on rails and vertical on stiles when you choose, simply, "red oak - natural" for the material of the "door".  

 

They must have some sort of logic baked in that does that.  Sort of like what is going on when you view 3D framing all textured in "fir framing."  But that's not it.  Try making a one door cab with a width and height such that a five-piece door for it is wider than it is tall.  Wider than two stile widths wider.  It'll grain right, I'll bet.

 

As an aside, when one does a drawerfront with a recessed center panel such as here, and mount a handle or knob pull anywhere in that panel (I centered handles), they "float" at the 3/4" front thickness, instead of mounting onto the recessed panel.  Hard to see unless you light the front and do shadows.

Edited May 3 by GeneDavis

[robdyck]

Try making the same drawer using framing members. Just model it 'flat' in plan view (this will give you the mitering option). Then convert to symbol and rotate as needed.

It might also be a material mapping issue after the symbol is created. Can you post an empty plan with the 3d solids as well as the completed drawer front?

Edited May 3 by robdyck

[DBCooper]

I was told that the Chief symbols were done in a more advanced 3D modelling program that allows them to setup custom texture mapping so that when they import it the materials will look the way they want them to.  Unless you have access to something like that, it's pretty easy to just use two different materials where one of them is rotated 90 degrees.

 

That said, you might want to experiment with using different types of objects to create the pieces. Robert suggested using framing members but you could also try other things like cabinet pieces or molding polylines.  Basically, anything that has well defined rules over how the texture looks.  Just need to make sure that all of the materials look right in Chief and if you are lucky they will keep the original texture mapping when converted into a symbol.  

 

[GeneDavis]

I went and made a rotated copy of Chief's "red oak - natural" texture, and used it to paint the door parts needing it.  Pic attached.

 

@DBCooper has me convinced there is some code behind this, and it's used in every door in Chief's libraries that has stile and rails, that was done to make material choice selection easy for users.  For us the users (not the losers!) who want to do doors or drawers or cabinet doors with stiles and rails and want to see woodgrain texturing, there is always the workaround of doing it with multiple materials and texturing the way you need.

[Joe_Carrick]

I've made a suggestion several versions back that wood grain textures should orient according to the longer dimension of the object - or at least have that as on option.  It should be available since there are a lot of condititions where it would apply.

Edited May 3 by Joe_Carrick

[tundra_dweller]

4 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

I've made a suggestion several versions back that wood grain textures should orient according to the longer dimension of the object

 

Yes! This would apply at least 80% of the time for my use cases.

[Rich_Winsor]

13 hours ago, GeneDavis said:

I went and made a rotated copy of Chief's "red oak - natural" texture, and used it to paint the door parts needing it. 

That's the easy way to do it. I name one copy red oak - horizontal

and the second copy red oak - vertical for easy reference. You can

also use the rotation angles 0° and 90°.

[MarkMc]

First I make the panel AND the framing beads as a door symbol starting with a countertop with moldings for the framing bead. Convert to cabinet door symbol, rotate during conversion (can also be used as a wainscot symbol for cabinet sides). I set the framing bead molding to the same material I will be using for the frames, I set the  panel to something else so I can change it to glass if needed when finished.

You could go use solids and molding lines but more work

THEN

For the frame use a framed wall cabinet with no top, back or sides full overlay. Set separations to suit. Then for the front place your wainscot symbol as a "side panel inset" (so there is no reveal around it, using an inset cabinet will give a reveal). If you set materials as shown above you will still be able to specify all to use the default in the final symbol.

The grain will automatically be in the correct direction without copy or rename so you can set your new door to use the default material. Change to drawer as needed.

I didn't check to see if still around but years ago and more than once I had posted a "door maker" plan.

[GeneDavis]

Thanks, @MarkMc!  Make a door or drawerfront from a cabinet!  That is out-of-the-box thinking, and you are using Chief's hard-coded grain orientation for the one-click-to-assign-oriented-texture thing.

 

But, I see no way to do the drawerfront I did with its top and bottom rails at 1-1/2" width and its stiles at 2-1/4".  How would one make a cabinet's face frame to that spec?

[MollyNDG]

@MarkMc, wow, I love this! I never thought to use a framed cabinet to create the stiles and rails allowing the material to maintain the correct orientations! Thank you so much for this tip, it is going to save me a lot of time and hassle.

 

@GeneDavis You can set the stiles at 2 1/4" under the Box Construction - Framed - Separation; then change the individual separations of the front of the cabinet to 1 1/2" in the Front/Sides/Back panel. Then just be sure to set your stretch planes correctly for the symbol so you don't lose those dimensions.

[GeneDavis]

Thanks, @MollyNDG!  Worked great, and I gave the recessed panel (the countertop) a little bevel molding to emulate a simple framing bead.  See the pics.  I can make a second symbol for doors with the wood grain rotated, so my doors and drawerfronts all have the same panel with framing bead.