unwrapUVW..

[|S&P|Papa6 0]

Well I'm making learning progress here...alert the media Anyhow, I want to texture my box(to be a building) I added my unwrap UVW and flattened my mapping. now this is where it gets tricky for me.

How can I separate my walls from the top and bottom of my box to allow for a texture to be added to my buildings and leave the top free to add a black or conrete texture for the roof? in the edit on unwrap UVW, I want to separate or unstitch the faces so I can apply my wall texture and leave the top free to texture with a concrete texture? I selected elements, selecting only the walls, but when I went to apply my texture, the roof textured with the walls..argh!

Deleyt, since you do this for a living...can you help me out here?

Thanx

[OSO 0]

I don't do this for a living but here is how I do it.

I make a box.

I convert it to editable mesh or poly.

I go into polygon sub-object level.

I select the faces I want a certain texture on.

I go to the material editor and load a texture into a free slot.

I apply the material to the selection.

Then back to the modify panel I add a uv map or unwrap modifier depending on the shape I am texturing. (You should see a gray polygon next to eh uv modifier in the list. I adjust the uv's as necessary.

Next I add a edit mesh modifier and go back to polygon sub-object level.

Now the polys you had selected before should still be highlighted. You can toggle highlight vs outline with the F2 key so you can see what you are doing.

Then I go to the Edit menu and select>inverse or I just reselect the polys I want for the next texture depending on the situation.

Back to the material editor for a new texture assignment to the newly selected faces followed by another uv map or unwrap modifier.

Once I'm satisfied with how it looks I'll collapse the stack to save on system resources.

You could do this differently by creating a multi-sub-object material first and assigning material IDs to the different sub-object levels as well but that is another lesson...

[|S&P|Papa6 0]

Thanx El_OSO. I'll give it some practise.

[BornToKill 0]

I do a similar way,

If you object is using the same material just apply the material to the whole object.Your roof is gonna have a different texture so i normally detach those polygons and call them"Roof" and apply the correct texture to that mesh.

Convert to an editable mesh, goto polygon sub menu, select the front faces you want to unwrap first.

I then apply a UVM Map and select BOX (I find that sometimes Planar can put all the vertices together when you add Unwrap modifier) and rotate the gizmo if required, makes unwraping alot quicker.

Then i add UVW Unwrap modifiyer, select edit, and move the vertices to where i want.I find Pixel Snap useful in the Unwrap editor.

When done Convert to editable mesh (this will lock the mapping for those polygons).Then simply select your next lot of polygons and repeat.

One thing to becareful of is to try and maintain the vertex distance ratios as much as possible.Moving them to far apart or near can cause the texture to appear overly squashed or stretched.

Here's some screenies that may help, showing how to get you material tiled onto your surface.

Hope this helps

Edited November 14, 2004 by BornToKill_TAW

[deleyt 0]

Although El Oso's & BTK's mapping-method is sufficient for primitive objects, if you want to map complicated structures you'll have to use Unwrap (in combination with UVWrap) to get good results.

One of the better tutorials how to do it properly can be found HERE.

This is basically the way I map my objects (all of 'em).

Follow it step by step and you'll be mapping the most complex objects perfectly without any problems.

Edited November 14, 2004 by |rsi|™deleyt

[BornToKill 0]

Great tutorial there deleyt, but i ain't got Max 5

Found some other nice tutorials there though

[San 0]

I was reading at Cgtalk.com (3dsm forum) and there they mapped a T-shaped object with multiple maps (channels) on the same object. It blended together (by using a mask and composite texture).

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=186212

[BornToKill 0]

Well i'm guessing but i assume that your limited by the Map exporter as well.I know GR supports Composite textures on 2 channels but what else i don't know.

I tried mapping a mesh with 2 different textures to save detaching and got a Mapping error on export.So i put the 2 textures together in photoshop and unwraped them instead.