Monday, March 7, 2011

3D Studio Max Basic Tutorial Part 2

Last time we left off with this.
Now its time for...
Part 2 - Texturing

1. Navigating the Material Browser

The material browser is at first a complicated matter, but with my graphic and some explination,
I'll get you on your feet in no time.

Pressing 'M' on your keyboard will bring the material browser up.
I've labeled all the important buttons for now and will explain them below.
By clicking the button labeled 1, you bring up the window on the right.
It is probably the one you will use the most in the beginning days.

'Assign Material to Selection'
The 2 button is that once you
have a nice texture picked out and an object selected, then you can apply
that material to the object you have selected.

'Put to library'
The 3 button saves the material you have into the material library.

'Show map in viewport'
The 4 button makes your material visible in your perspective view.

The 5 button switches the type of material you are using.
Such as: Standard, Raytrace, Shellac or Composite.
We won't get in to this much in this tuotrial but,
I encourage you to fool with them on your own.

The 6 button adds a backround to the texture preview spheres
for when you use tranparency.

Now on to business.

2. Customizing Textures and Applying them to the Scene

Our Wood Texture

Note! If you did not install correctly then then below images and procedures will not work!

First, click the '5' button and switch to Raytrace. Now click on this button

Where it says 'Browse From:' select Mtl Library and scroll all the way down to the bottom.
You should see this material
Double-Click it.

Click this up-arrow button to return to the main properties of the material.

Find this button and dbl-click

Goto mtl library and select

Your texture should look something like this:

Now go back to the scene and select: the main body, the top,
and the 3 dressers by holding down Cntrl and clikcing them.

In the material editor click the 'Assign Material to Selection' button (#2),
and the 'Show map in Viewport' button (#4).
It should come out something like this. If it does not, then we still might be ok!
Just e-mail me once you finish this part of the tutorial if it is still not working right!

3. Fitting Textures: UVW Map

Basically, UVW Map is just a fancy way of saying how your texture fits around your object.
It is pretty self-eplanatory and below are just the UVW Map properties of the objects in the scene.


Select the main box of the dresser and go to your modifier tab.

In your modifier list scroll down to UVW Map and click it. This comes up.
Change your values to meet these:



3D-Environment-Lighting

Dresser Box UVW Map Settings

Dresser Top UVW Map Settings

The drawers don't need any UVW settings so well just leave them be.

Our Drawer Pull Texture

Open up the material editor ('M') and click on a blank material slot.


Open the material browser up and goto the material library.
Find Metal_Dark_Gold. Dbl-Click and go back the Material Editor.
Open the maps rollout.

Uncheck the Reflection box. (You just turned off a 'layer' of the texture by taking away its reflective map.)
Now go back up to the main rollout. Click on the color next to the word 'Diffuse:'. You can change the color
to anything you want. I chose a nice white. Also, if you are feeling crazy ;-) then you can fool around
with the glossiness and specular levels. (They determine the shiny-ness [theres a technical term for ya] of the material.)

With that done, select all of the drawer pulls and apply your material to them.

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