Introduction

In this tutorial I am explaining how to make a game-box like the one in the picture, it will show you the basics on how to use the Texporter plug-in for 3ds max, if you finish this tutorial you will understand how to use the Texporter plug-in and how to prepare a model for use with the Texporter plug-in. After that you can start using it on your own models to create a ‘texture-sheet’ so you can make your own textures without any big stretching on the model in game.

Here's How!

1. First create a box that resembles a game box, on the right side go to Geometry, select box and draw one in the Front view port, move your mouse up so it will become a 3d box.

2. Select the box and right click, go to convert to and select convert to Editable mesh

3. click on the Modify tab

4. in the modifier list, choose Unwrap UWV, below the list you should see Unwrap UVW in grey with a little + sign on the left of it, click on it and you should see: Select Face. click on it!

5. go to Perspective view port, hover your mouse on Perspective and right Click, select Wire frame. Make sure you can see the whole box.

6. Click on one of the faces of the box and you should see the edges turn Yellow. Now look to the right of the max screen. on the bottom you should see a big button Edit. Under that button there should be a tab called: Sub Object Parameters. with 3 little buttons called X, Y and Z. try clicking them and you should see the yellow box change in the view ports.

Make sure the yellow box contains the whole face you selected.

7. now click the big button called Planar Map, after that click on the Edit button. this will take you to the Edit UVW screen. On the far left of that window you see 5 little buttons, you will use the 2 that are on the far left. the first one with the 4 arrows will let you move the vertices and the one with the little white box within the big box will let you scale the face.

8. on the bottom right of the window you see the magnifier button. select it and zoom out you will see 4 red dots in the window, select the Move button on the top far left of the window and move them somewhere else.

9. repeat the same with all the faces of the box.

10. after you are done with the faces, scale them down so they will fit in that little dark blue box in the Edit UVW window. Move all the faces in the dark blue box. make sure they don’t overlap each other. you can select a face by selecting the move button and go over a face while holding down your left mouse button.

11. after you done placing all the faces in the dark blue box, exit the window.

12. now select the little hammer on the right of the main max screen. You should see 3 buttons, More..., Sets and a little blue and white one click that and in the left scroll menu look for Texporter, select it and hold down your mouse. drag it to one of the buttons on the right. You will see that button change into Texporter, click OKE

13. click the new Texporter button.

14. Under Parameters change the image size to whatever you want, for my box I used 1024x1024 deselect Polygon Fill deselect Backface Cull deselect Mark OVerlaps

Select the Constant button under Smooth Colors and change the color to white.

15. now click on the Pick Object button and click on your box. A new window will open with the picture with all the faces. Save it to your HD as a jpg, also save the box to your HD.

16. open the jpg in Photoshop and create the texture! Remember the white lines are the ends of the face, so try to stay within the white lines.

17. when you are done, go back to max and open the Box. select the material editor ( 4 little balls on the right top of the screen )

18. select the first gray ball. under Blinn Basic Parameters, click the square besides Diffuse.

19. in the Material/map browser, double-click Bitmap and find your texture.

20. In the material editor, look for the blue and white box and click it once.

21. select your box

22. In the material editor look for the button Assign material to selection it is on the top left of the editor, click it.

23. go to Perspective view port and hover again over perspective, click on Smooth + Highlights.

24. Add a skylight to the scene and you could also add a plane as a background.

25. press '9' on your keyboard and select Light Tracer.

26. now you are ready to render the scene!

Link for the Texporter plug-in: cuneytozdas.com

It is available for all versions of 3ds max.

Swartsz