Texturing

How to Texture:

To start texturing the first thing you need is one something to texture and an image to texture with. I had a wood picture in Photoshop which I manipulated to change into a crate look of texture. I then added a text onto the texture and saved it as a separate image from the plain crate texture that i created. This is so i can make the crate model look "Fragile". The images below are the images that I created in Photoshop.

To texture the model that i have set up in 3DS Max I went to the "Material Editor" option in the top tool selection and got this screen.

I then selected the cube model that I had created and selected a texture ball in the "Material Editor" and gave the texture a name. I then went onto the selection box on the right of the diffuse option and selected bitmap from the pop up menu. I then found and selected my texture to apply to my model.

 I then hit the "Assign Material to Selection" option and the "Show Standard Map in Viewport" option to see the texture whilst you are editing.

I now only want to texture one side of the crate model now and to do this I right clicked the model and converted it to an "Editable Poly" so I can edit the faces of the model. to do this i went to the side section of the program which now has a selection option. To edit the model how I wanted i selected the "Polygon" option and selected the faces that I wanted to texture. I then went through the process of putting another texture into the material editor with the polygons still selected and then applied the material to the product and i then had the sides i wanted textured done. Below are pictures of this process that i went through for this.

This is the render of the texture for a fragile crate.

Types Of Texturing:

Normal Mapping:

The mapping technique for 3DS max is a simple process if you know where to look in the program. To explain this I am going to texture a game environment to really show how simple texturing can be. First of all i am going to map the ground of a desert scene. First I selected the area that I want to texture and went to "Material Editor" and gave my texture a name and an image to work from. I then made it so I can see the texture when I edit it when I put the mapping modifier on the model. To put this modifier on so I could make the sand look better is that i went to the Modify tab on the right properties box in 3DS Max and in the modifier list I selected UVW Map and I then chose the correct properties for what type of environment the texture is on. For this texture I used the "Box" option in the properties bar to make the sand look clearer on the model. This is an example of normal mapping.

Seamless Mapping:

Seamless mapping is a type of texture that will not let the viewer see the parts of a texture that should not match up. You create seamless textures by getting your image and importing it into photoshop. You then select the area of the image you want to make into a seamless texture and you take down the measurements of that area and half the amount of pixels on both sides (For example 512 x 512 pixels will become 256 x 256 pixels. You need this for the next step). Then you go into the filter menu in photoshop and you go to Other > Offset and you then put in the measurements that are half of your canvas size (This is where the measurement example from the last example come in). After i applied that effect the image will have lines going across it. You have to fix this with the stamp tool to blend the images together so you cannot see the lines. Bellow is an example of an image that I have created to become seamless (Before fix and After fix).

Before






                                                  After


I then put this onto my model that I wanted this on the same way as the rest of the textures because seamless textures do not require a special setting in 3DS Max for this type of texture. This is what my texture looks like on the model.

Transparent Texturing:

To create a transparent texture in photoshop you need to create a new alpha channel. i am going to be doing this for a water texture so I do not need to edit anything in the channel. If parts are black on the layer this means that it will be transparent when I import it into 3DS Max. I then went to file save and saved the file as a Tagra file and a JPEG for the diffuse texture. It needs to be saved as a Tagra file because Tagra files save all channels instead of just the RGB channel.

Now that I am in 3DS Max I selected the part I wanted to add my texture to and went to material editor. I then scrolled down to maps and checked "Diffuse" and "Opacity" These two options will make the transparent effect on the water.

I then clicked the button with "none" wrote on it on both options and added the JPEG to the diffuse option and the Tagra option to the opacity option both in the bitmap option. I then but a UVW Map modifier on the water to edit the look of the texture and looked how it turned out in the render window because you can only see this effect in the render window. This is what the water looks like when it has been rendered with a UVW Map on the texture.

Bump map texturing:

To do bump map texturing you need a certain plug-in for photoshop created by NVIDIA (Can be found here - https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop ) because photoshop does not have the proper filters to do a good bump map on the texture. After I downloaded the texture i restarted photoshop and imported the picture that i am going to bump map. I then went to filters and the new NVIDIA tools option that includes the bump map tool. I then chose my preferred setting for the bump map then previewed it and the darker it was the bigger the bump is on the texture.

I saved the image with and without the bump map as a JPEG image and then went to 3DS Max to import the bump map texture to my model. In 3DS Max I then selected the model that I wanted the texture to go and then I went to material editor and went to the maps options and this time I checked the diffuse and bump option. I added the JPEG without the bump to the diffuse option but before I import the texture on the bump menu i have to not select the "bitmap" on the first pop up screen but instead I selected the normal bump option from the list of options from the first pop up menu. I then imported the JPEG with the bump map onto the normal option from the "bitmap" option.

After I applied the texture to the model I then rendered the product to see the effects of the bump and was really happy with the results. The model looks more realistic and has a nice feeling to the model's texture.