18 replies to this topic

[Shard]

Before we begin lets establish the rules of UV'ing and what you can do and not do AND what it is...

What you will need : 3ds max 6 7 or 8 9 for sure, Not having a 1GH processor helps, A demanding task for that kind of hardware.

Texporter : Go google it its completely free.

What is it? : First off you know how in alot of our renders (IE : Thrawns revenge, Stars ablaze, UEAW, DE, AOSW, GG) How theyre completely gray? UV unwrapping makes a Colorable map, That you texture...

Rules : Alot of people dont get this but if you UV a plane/face that slightly angles the UV will stretch, Making a giant piece of gook!

You also cannot make faces overlap eachother, For instance if you UV'ed FACE 1, And FACE 2 And one was completely different from the other (Such as if one was on top and one was to the left) you would get a serious error, However if two faces are in the same direction and look the same you can do this.

Ok lets begin...

Go to this menu,



CLICK : Box and drag in the middle of your grid...

You must drag its length and height, No problem really.

Now RIGHT click the box and go down to : Convert to : A menu should pop out and click editable poly...

Now go to your modifier Menu

And press U till you find UNWRAP UVW

Now lets begin, Click the plus sign next to UNWRAP UVW, (Its above editable poly)

And click FACE

Now then lets REALLY get started, Click on a random face any will do...

Scroll down till you find the button EDIT! click it you will see a bunch of crap in a small blue OUTLINED box...

This is normal, but click the button PLANAR! Judging on what place you selected will judge on how to align it, If you clicked a box in the Y direction (Left or right) click ALIGN y (Note when you click a face The gizmo will appear where you selected, it will have all the directions you need to know how to allign)



When its done UN click planar and move it outside the blue box, Do this for the other side,

For top and bottom do allign Z and front and back is Allign X

Now then you need to move all the faces you planar'ed out of the blue box, when you've done so...Click one on the faces and Scale it down by pressing this button and dragging the face to a small size...

(Its like how you made the box,)

Now when all of those are in that little blue box Go to the hammer on your menu, click MORE

click one and just press t till you find texporter, Make the size for the UV from 800 600 to 1024 1024, Then click choose object (something like that) And click the box, If all faces dont show up its fine, Go back to the menu where you were UV'ing, And go back to edit, And change it to face...

Select a face that didnt appear and Hold down the last button on the right till it brings a drop down menu, First from the bottom and click that,

When your done just do it again, Vualah you've made your first UV!

Anyone who has questions feel free to post.

[Stargazer]

thanks for this bud.

I need to get my head around modelling so I can be more useful

[ttandc]

G'day shard

I'm a little new to modelling but I'm working on some models at the moment with 3DS Max 9. I'm trying to learn how to use this program by myself and have seen this uv process before but I can't see the use in doing all of this when I can just use a multi/subobject material from the material editor to colour and texture my models. Is this wrong? Shoud I be using uv's? What are the advantages of uv's? If you check out the gallery you'll see my R2D2 which was used with a multi/sub object material, as far as I'm aware it turned out ok.

Edited by ttandc, 23 December 2006 - 08:37 PM.

[Shard]

Give me an example i really dont understand what you mean.

[Dr. Knickers]

I think he means that he considers UV mapping useless since in Max, you can have subobject materials, mix, etc.

@ ttandc

That would be great, but I'm pretty sure that a UV map is necessary for use in EaW.

[Shard]

It may be useful for rendering yes for things like human heads that need a basic skin color but not for anything game wise.

[DragonShadow]

UV's work for games, materials work for renders...

[ttandc]

Sorry shard,

I should have been a little more specific. I use 3DS Max 9 to make my short films ( and with any luck feature length films in the future ).  I can't say I know everything about this program yet but with what animations I've made so far the use of a multi/ sub oject material has worked out fine.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the program ( if you are just disregard this paragraph ) but in the material editor with max we have a choice of using a multi/ sub object material which can have numerous different textures and colours added to it. I give a number to each texture/ colour I need for a model ( eg. 1. brown 2. yellow 3.red ). Once that's done I then apply it to my model and then start selecting the polygons I wish to have the first texture/ colour added to. I then scroll down the menu and set the polygons ID to whichever number I wish to. ( eg. if I select a group of polygons and set their ID to number 3 then as my last eg. would suggest all those polygons selected would be red )

If you want to have a look at the result check out my R2D2 in the gallery here. A multi/ sub object material was used on him. My animations also use a multi /sub object materials and so far I havn't had any problems. But as I've said before I am new to this and if uv's are the only way to do this then I better hit the books again. I picked up a few more text books the other day that should help ( 3DS Max 8 Bible and Master Visually 3DS Max 8, 3DS Max 9 is still too new to have any books out yet).


G'day Dr Nick

That would be a shame if UV's are the only way to go. I don't consider uv mapping usless I just found using the multi / sub object material way to be a lot easier and quicker. If UV's are the way the games played then I think I might need to hit the text books and polish up on what I do know about UV wrapping and unwrapping ( which isn't much ) From what I can recall it involves exporting/ inporting a uv map outside of max and into a program like photoshop and then back into max when I've finished.  

G'day dragonshadow

Forgive the noob question but whats the difference between a material or colour added to a model and a UV added to a model?

[Freno]

A UV essentially a map that can only be applied to a model in one way, and will put the detail in exactly the right place. A material is just a recurring flat texture that will look different in every view.

[ttandc]

thanks for the definitions there freno  

And I apologise if I'm drawing this out longer but if I was to unwrap and wrap a skin around that R2D2 model I have in the gallery what difference would I see?

I guess the question I'd like to ask is what can't I do with multi/ sub object materials that I can do with uv's. And I can already place multi/ sub object materials in exactly the right place I need to, so I can't see that as being an advantage uv's have over multi/ sub objects.

Edited by ttandc, 28 December 2006 - 12:53 AM.

[Shard]

Notice how all my "Materials" are on the MC? Its a uv map its all one diffuse map.

UV mapping can be used for what you are doing too, Example here.

http://www.deviantar...ation/45453136/

--- Made By Veegie ---

Your method i guess would be for parts that would take way too much time to UV i guess.

[ttandc]

Thanks to all who replied to my questions, I'll try and be a little more specific next time. Apologies again if I couldn't explain well enough the procedures I use. I'm still new to the world of CG, if uv's are how models are skinned in the gamming industry I guess I better stick to the movie industry.

regards ttandc

P.S. The R2D2 took me about 30 minutes to apply all of his colours and materials I didn't consider that a long amount of time but like I've said before I havn't been using max for long and am unsure what people consider way too much time.

Edited by ttandc, 29 December 2006 - 12:37 AM.

[Shard]

In that case my team might have a job for you CG wise if you are interested. =D

[Sidious Invader]

This sounds like a good place to ask...hopefully! I am very new to 3d modelling, but here goes...

If I model just a cube, uvwrap it, apply the texture, bone it, then follow the guide "applying the shaders", and save it using the Alamo utilities in 3d max 9. Will that make it work in game(EAW)? Sorry for such a newbie question, but I'd appreciate any points in the right direction. Am I missing any steps, or is it more complicated than that?

[ttandc]

sorry shard, I just read your reply. I wasn't planning on coming back, due to my usefulness with the games industry being much more limited than I thought. I'm not sure if I could be of any help with you guys our procedures seem a little different. But if you need some minor work done feel free to send me some and I'll see what I can do.  

[Shard]

If you can animate a bit and do CGI i think i might have a job for you later.

[euroanim]

Shard, on Nov 22 2006, 07:13 PM, said:

Select a face that didnt appear and Hold down the last button on the right till it brings a drop down menu, First from the bottom and click that,

How do we know which face didnt appear?

for a simple box its easy to understand what about a complex mesh?

I selected the face and "pick object again" but didnt got it working..

Any help?????????

[Shard]

You can usually tell...well...er.

You look at the UV then look at what Texporter didnt pop up.

But if you turn I think all the other options except fill Edges and Faces it can prevent that.

[Kelathin]

euroanim, on Sep 27 2008, 03:14 AM, said:

How do we know which face didnt appear?

for a simple box its easy to understand what about a complex mesh?

I selected the face and "pick object again" but didnt got it working..

Any help?????????

If you are using Max 8+ use the unwrapper modifier

On a more complex map, when you start unwrapping, you can see the select face in the viewports while editting the UVW.  

Another method that is simpler is to create a checker material and apply it to your model. The checker material should form a nice checker map. If it doesn't, then the faces weren't properly flattened or aren't scaled correctly.