Complex Materials

[Gander0]

Hi all!

 

Hope you can help.

 

My problem is this this:

 

At present i am creating my first detailed architectural visualisation in 3D Max version 5. I have a number of detailed editable polygons to which i am applying a number of compostite materials.

 

My process at present is to select the faces/polygons of an element at sub-object level and give all the polygons Material ID's. I then apply a Poly Select Modifier, select by ID the particular face I wish to map, then apply a UVW Mapping Modifier and scale the gizmo accordingly. I then do this again and again until all the surface requiring different materials have UVW Maps.

 

I follow this procedure because i need each material to be accurate on each set of faces i select.

 

My question is that this can't be the best procedure can it?

I end up with a massive modifier list of Poly Select and UVW Mapping modifiers and can't even access the base Editable Polygon Modifier to add or subtract face selections from a particular Material ID.

 

Can anyone explain a better way of acurately mapping a number of complex materials while still being able to access and edit Material ID selections.

 

Any help is very much appreciated!

[Gander0]

OK lets try this: Does anyone use this procedure? If not how does anyone go about mapping a number of different sets of faces on an element accurately?

 

?? Thanks

[recon]

I've been doing viz work for almost ten years, and I've never had the need to get so complex in the mapping of different elements.

For the most part, I get by with default mapping coordinates or simple planar or box mapping coordinates.

If I have an object with many different sub materials, they often share the same mapping gizmo. Use of the map scalar space-warp and the tiling and offset spinners in the material editor is also very handy.

 

Can you give a more detailed example of what the objects are and how it is modelled, as well as the type of material that it requires?

 

-john manning

[Gander0]

Thanks for your reply John.....Someone came up with the solution to my problem in the Max forum, basically i had overlooked the map channel selector in the UVW mapping modifier options. I was therefore having to use a polygon select modifier for every face with a different material. All sorted now, i can't believe i was doing that for so long.

 

These forums are a godsend!!

[Christopher Nichols]

Are you simply applying different texture maps to each face? If so, there are tools to help you through that. It is called UVW unwrap. It un folds your object in UV space. You can then take the image of the UV space of the object, and apply the textures in the correct location in photoshop. You then have a single UV map for the whole object. It is the way to go for texturing complex objects, and how it is done for characters. Just keep in mind that UV mapping of this type can take a while to learn but well worth it in the end.

[Ernest Burden III]

Are you simply applying different texture maps to each face? If so, there are tools to help you through that. It is called UVW unwrap.

This is a 'general discussion' thread, so I want to look at this more broadly than MAX. What tools are there to do a UV map?

 

I have a shareware called UltimateUnwrap3D which is pretty good, but hard to use. I will buy the Cinema4D add-on called BodyPaint when I get c4d--I think BodyPaint is stand-alone, so should work for anyone (can someone confirm)? There is Zbrush--of which I know nothing--and the same goes for DeepPaint3D/DeepUV.

 

What other stand-alone applications exist/are good for UV mapping?

[nisus]

I suggest to search for good books rather than software...

 

nisus