Texturing Max 8

[Deleted User]

Hey All! and before we get an explosion of replys saying GOOGLE! or SEARCH! i wanted to ask something different. I am new at modelling, and i have been able to model simple things. But i don't know how to texture and i know theres a thousand links but i dont know which are good tuts or not. Could you please tell me what tuts (if any) you used to get started or that you know are good for texturing thanks!

Guerrilla

Texturing (at least the traditional painting kind) usually consists of two steps. UV mapping (making your 3d object correspond pixels on a flat 2d plane) and painting (painting your textures on that very same 2d image, after which they should properly appear on your model.) Now this is all pretty basic and I've left out some pretty important stuff (procedural textures, shaders, renderers and different types of maps, and all that wonderful technical stuff) but I'm not about to (nor really all that qualified) to write a whole lot on texturing.

So... uh... how about trying your hand at these two tutorials. The scope is obviously pretty limited, but I reckon if you master them both up to a point where you don't have to look stuff up anymore, you're a pretty good texturer. After that it's mainly up to your artistic vision.


UV Mapping:
Very good tutorial about the basic UV mapping procedure. It's a bit dated and MAX 8 brought about a number of very welcome changes on the whole unwrapping system, but you should learn the basics before you play with the new features.

UVW-Mapping in 3DS Max

Texture painting:
Hard surface texture painting. Obviously not all stuff is going to be hard surfaces, but I really liked the way he dealt with different sorts of maps.

CGTalk - Tutorial:Hard Surface Texture Painting

Larsen

^ hehe amazing how that old tut keeps popping up... that's how I learned too:D... great tut!

[Deleted User]

ok a quick question.... what does automatic mapping for the unwrap UVW do (e.g flatten mapping , normal mapping)?


also i get to the point where i have to try to select all the cockpit window like this....


so i do then im supposed to press planar map....



then its supposed to look like this when it comes up.....


but instead its turned funny and a different size, im assuming that the size is a Max 8 thing but the turn thing i can't seem to change.....



im sorry if this doen't make sense but it's kinda hard to describe.
Thanks!

Guerrilla

Your mapping gizmo (the yellow plane that shows up when you do planar mapping) seems to be facing the wrong way. Just rotate it 90 degrees or so and you should get what you're supposed to (just look at how the yellow plane is aligned in the first pic you posted).

The different sizes and orientations are pretty much just something you have to learn to live with, but on the other hand it's pretty easy to move stuff around.