3D Studio Max: Random tips & tricks

[Razorwing]

Please share your little random bits of information on 3D Studio Max with the rest of us, and maybe we'll all learn something new from each other!

I'll go first, shall I.

1. Let's say you want to texture-map a rectangular wall surface with a tiled wall texture. Problem is, the wall texture is square! What to do to make it tile perfectly in an easy way? The answer is to fire up your Windows calculator. Take the highest number (i.e. 232,122) and divide it by the lowest number (i.e. 89,427) and the result (~2,5957) is how much you need to tile it as opposed to the other value. You can just multiply the result if you want to tile it more than once on the short end, for instance 2 times vertically and 5,1913 horistontally. By doing this simple calculation you'll always get the perfect perspective.

2. When you're making a collision mesh you'll want to optimize it a lot, by adding an Optimize modifier to your copied mesh. This usually makes your collision mesh collapse a bit so it's inside the real model - which is bad, because you'd rather have the player bounce off an object than sink his feet into it. My tip is to add a Push modifier after the Optimize modifier, as that blows up the geometry of the polygons without mucking with the model's placement in the world - much better than resizing it in my opinion!

[Corwyn]

Could you explain further what you mean in the first tip? I dont quite follow you, though it does sound like you may be using functions in max that shouldn't be used when it comes to game modeling?

The second tip is a bit of a no go zone for me, the optimise function in max does an absolutely terrible job in my experience, and I would always rather clean meshes over horribly deformed ones. I always start from scratch for the collision (not that much work since its fairly simple geometry. Also to get simplified geometry that follows odd shapes or organics use the snap to vertex function to position the collision as close as possible to the actual model.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Corwyn
Could you explain further what you mean in the first tip? I dont quite follow you, though it does sound like you may be using functions in max that shouldn't be used when it comes to game modeling?

The second tip is a bit of a no go zone for me, the optimise function in max does an absolutely terrible job in my experience, and I would always rather clean meshes over horribly deformed ones. I always start from scratch for the collision (not that much work since its fairly simple geometry. Also to get simplified geometry that follows odd shapes or organics use the snap to vertex function to position the collision as close as possible to the actual model.

1. If the surface is rectangular but the texture you have is square, like 256x256 pixels, you want it to tile more in one direction than the other one otherwise it'll look stretched out. By dividing the highest number with the lowest number - mathematically, in an external calculator - you'll know exactly how much you need the texture to tile in the long direction.

2. Do you have the Auto Edge box ticked? Because that usually keeps the geometry mostly intact. I use it all the time

[Corwyn]

interesting, I will have to look into what you say. I have never used any of the tiling functions in max, or its material rotation functions etc when it comes to games modeling. Seeing as games only use UVW coords and not random functions in max such as tiling and rotation I have always done all of the texture adjustments with the UVW coords to ensure it works correctly.

Even with the auto edge ticked it still produces 5 sided faces and nothing even close to a clean mesh =p

And since this will fast go off I'll stop asking questions and making comments! I will keep an eye on this thread though and if possible try to contribute to it!

[Gyssar]

Ok, here are my two cents:

I. Here's a little step-by-step on unwrapping UVW for complex models, like characters (this tutorial is for those who are at least vaguely familiar with MAX and know what the modifier stack and sub-object levels are):

1. Make your mesh and collapse the stack to the "editable mesh" surface type, as it's the only one Oblivion understands properly within the game.

2. Go to the "materials editor", select a blank material and add a checker map into the "diffuse color" channel, tile (20 by 20 is usually a good number) and push the "show in veiwport" button (i'll explain what this is for later).

3. Select your whole mesh, apply the created material to the mesh (the checkered map will appear messy and distorted), then, from the modifier rollout, apply the "unwrap UVW" modifier to the mesh and click on the "edit" button in the modifier properties window.

4. A window will open. What you'll see at this stage is a total mess, this won't do, so what you do is the following: at the top-right corner of the opened window, you'll see a dropdown field, that chooses the map to display. select your checkered map in there, you'll see that the background of the window has changed to your map. Now drag a selection box around all the UVs and shrink them down to the size of about half a white square and place it in the middle of one of the white squares (at this stage your mesh should turn completely white). COLLAPSE THE STACK!

5. Take a very close look at your mesh, and you'll see that it can roughly be devided into numerous parts, that correspond to one of the following shapes: box, sphere, cylinder, plane.

6. Select one of those parts at the sub-object level, minding the edges - they have to be in a reclusive location, as the seams between the unwrapped UVW segments will run along those edges.

7. Leaving the mesh selected at the sub-object level, drop down the modifier rollout and apply the "UVW map" modifier (you'll notice that the area of your mesh that you have selected in step 6 becomes checkered), in the "mapping" section select the type of mapping that fits the shape of your selected area the most, then, at the gismo sub-object level move and shape the gizmo, so that the checkers appear the least distorted.

8. Now apply the "unwrap UVW" modifier again and click on "edit". The window will open again and it will now contain the UVs only for the section of the mesh you have selected in step 6. Now, select all those UVs and move them WELL beyond the thick black line that sorrounds the central texture tile, taking care to remember it's approximate position. COLLAPSE THE STACK!!!

9. Now reselect the area you just unwrapped and hide it. Repeat steps 6 - 9 until the whole mesh is hidden, taking care not to overlap the unwrapped sections in the UVW editor.

10. Now your mesh should be fully hidden, unhide it, select the whole mesh and, once again, aplly the "unwrap UVW" modifier and click on Edit. You'll see, that the skin of your mesh is randomly scattered all over the place, your quest is now to put all those sections of skin (taking extra care not to overlap) within the black margin, while keeping them as large as possible. Mind, that sections that you wish to have extra fine detail (like the face) should be larger than those of little detail (legs, arms), which should be reflected on the mesh itself by the checkered map, with the checkers being smaller on areas of fine detail.

11. That's all folks, now all you have to do is download the Texporter plugin for your version of MAX and, using the exported UVW in photoshop as a reference, paint your texture :bananarock:

Tip for low detail geometry: You don't have to go to all that trouble with geometry of lower detail, because Oblivion welds all the imported geometry at fused vertecies, so all you have to do is break the object into multiple peices (works best with simple architecture and weapons), minding not to move any corresponding vertecies away from each other at the edges, as it will only weld the vertecies, sharing the same coordinates, and apply a texture to each piece individually.

P.S. if this tut din't seem clear enough, send me a PM and I'll gladly explain more into the basics.

Edit: Seems this thread died quite a while ago, would be good to revive it, and maybe even sticky it if it starts growing, might prove very useful, i encourage the community to post in here!

[noremorse]

Awesome Gyssar! Thank you much. I copied your post into the Tutorial board: [3DS] UVW Unwrapping

[Razorwing]

1) When you make a collision mesh, make it solid - don't leave any open borders. If you leave open borders the collision mesh will interfere with other collision in the vicinity, which can be especially bad if it keeps for instance doors from working.


2) The number of vertices in your model doesn't matter, because the nif format doesn't use polygons like 3D Studio Max does; it breaks down your model into faces (triangles). Whether you weld the vertices together or not makes no difference for performance.


3) Make the visible part of your opacity map one or two pixels smaller than the visible part of the color map. Oblivion automatically blurs the edges, meaning that if the opacity and color match perfectly you'll see weird, sharp edges as Oblivion bleeds into the background color of the alpha layer.
[...]
The fadenode error reported by the Construction Set can be both annoying and confusing. Technically you can achieve transparancy in a material either by changing the Alpha slider on the NiMaterialProperty block, or by adding an alpha channel to your color map and add a NiAlphaProperty property to the NiTriStrips block. The second way is the right way to do it.


4) If you're mapping a rectangle, detach two polygons on one horisontal side and two on the other. Set up the planar map on one of them, then drag-drop it to the other mesh, then change the alignment radio button on the texture map on the uvw mapping modifier until it looks right. Can save you a minute each time you do it.


5) The collision mesh can often be a great tool when making _far models. Take a screenshot of the model, make a small DDS of it (no bigger than 128x128), then map the collision model with it. Even very complex buildings can be made to look awesome in the horizon with a 'composite' textures like that on a 100-face _far model. I recently made a composite texture like that with four perspectives of the full model, then set up four maps on the basically cubical _far model and just manipulated the stretch so it matched each side perfectly.



Edit 007.02.25, 05:21 C.E.T.:
Ok, another one from me

Having trouble finetuning the Center of Gravity (bhkCollisionObject > bhkRigidBody > Center) of your collision model in Nifskope because the model is covering the whole marker? Right-click on the NiTriStrips that's covering your center of gravity marker and choose "Node > Attach Property". Choose 'NiWireframeProperty", then set it's flag to 1. Presto! Just don't forget to remove the block before saving your nif.

[Ghogiel]

uvw unwrap tools plugin for max. http://www.chuggnut.com/scripts/unwrapto...ptools.htm

No reason to be without this plugin. It adds lots of functional tools to uvw unwrap modifier.
Things like snap selected verts horizontally or vertically are indispensable! Just look at all those lovely new buttons it adds on the website. :love:

tired that you UV gets destroyed when you use the standard optimise modifier?
http://www.af-video.com/opt_fl.htm

"A bend modifier for curling things up. Does sea shells, corkscrews etc." Quite novel. I have a use for it
http://www.maxplugins.de/r6_files/blurbe...torama.zip
edit:
After trying and failing to get the above plugin to work in max8. I gave up. But randomly came across this plugin http://www.maxplugins.de/r6_files/blurbeta/blurlib.zip
Which is needed to make many blurbeta plugins work. But you would never have know that unless you accidentally found it like I did, and happened to notice that blurbeta was the same maker of the plugin you were just having difficulty with. Lucky that.
/edit

Max without plugins and scripts isn't cricket

[Razorwing]

Nice ones Ghogiel!

Like I've been saying for a year... I should really get the hang of uvw unwrapping soon

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black[/hr]


1) Did you know that the numerical Glossiness setting under Blinn Basic Parameters in 3D Studio Max's Material Editor is kept when you export your model? Click the palette icon on the NiMaterialProperty node in NifSkope to see it for yourself. Glossiness is a way of equalizing a specular map; in Max you often use the same texture both for specular and gloss, so Bethesda didn't support Gloss as separate textures but rather let them draw upon the specular map by default. [Image]



2) You might know that Oblivion blends opacity by default, and that there's no known way to stop the game from doing that. If you make a two-colored black and white mask that fits the contours of the color map perfectly you're going to wind up with a nasty border all around the texture. Rather, what you should do after you've created the mask is to select the white part and flood fill it with dark gray (#404040, or number 64 on a grayscale). Now contract the selection by 1 pixel, and flood fill it white. (Also make sure the background of the color map isn't a total mismatch to the color texture). Right. Now, when you add the NiAlphaProperty, raise the threshold until it blends. (refer to meshes\plants\cpfern01.nif for a good example)

[shewter]

Here's one for blender,When you import a nif file it's triangulated, and has extra vertices, in edit mode select all and "w" remove doubles,if you like working with triangles or select scripts
window
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/s...ipts01.jpg

Then scripts http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/s...ipts02.jpg
then mesh->triangles to quads
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/s...ipts03.jpg

I use the deafault settings, seems to work ok