Let's start
putting a material and a texture on this object. First, download
this texture and
put it in your mydash directory.
Note: to get this texture,
you might need to right click on the link, then choose Save
Target As.
Next, click
on the Material icon - its at the top near the right side
of the screen - it looks like 4 colored balls. This will bring up
the material editor.
Next, we're going to get
the material that is already assigned to the Dash9. In the Material
window, click on the icon to the left - it looks like a blue
ball with an arrow. This is the Get Material icon. |
 |
The Material/Map Browser
window should pop-up. To the left, under Browse From,
click on Scene. Now, click on the third material down from the
top of the list to highlight - Material #57 (Multi/Sub-Object)
[FREIGHT]. |
 |
You should notice a ball
sample that has the BNSF textures on it in a small window to
the left. Click and drag that ball sample over to the first
ball in the Material Editor. You'll get a pop-up dialog
box - make sure that Instance is selected, then hit OK.
|
 |
Go ahead
and close the Material/Map Browser window. We are going to
make room for our new texture. In the Material Editor, under
Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters, click on the Set Number
button. A pop-up dialog will show. Change the number to 6
and hit OK.
Now that
we have our own material slot, we need to name it. MSTS can show
a variety of surface types - from dull surfaces, to shiny surfaces,
to transparent surfaces and more. In order to tell MSTS what surface
you want to have on your texture, you need to name the material
with a specific name. We will name our material - TransNorm1.
This tells MSTS that the material will have see through areas and
will react normaly to the light. The number following the name is
an ID number. Because you can have multiple versions of the
same material type, this number helps MSTS tell them apart.
To rename
our material, click on the button labelled Material #58 [Standard]
in the Material Editor, under the Multi/Sub-Object Basic
Parameters. You'll notice that the Material Editor will
now show you attributes of that material. Click in the text window
that says Material #58 and change it to say TransNorm1.
Copy this name exactly - MSTS is case-sensitive.
Let's put a texture to our
new material. Look down under Blinn Basic Parameters
and click on the empty square button next to the grey
rectangle next to the word Diffuse: |
 |
The Material/Map
Browser window will pop open again. In the lister
box, double click on Bitmap. |
 |
|
A Select Bitmap Image
File pop-up dialog box will show. Select the testtex.tga
file and click on Open. |
 |
Now we
need to assign our new material to our object. Click on our object
in any window view to select it if it hasn't been already. Next,
go to the Material Editor and click on the Assign Material
to Selection icon - it looks like a ball, an arrow, and a white
box.
Hey, let's see what our
new material looks like. First, we need to turn the material
on. In the Material Editor, click on the Show Map
in Viewport icon - it looks like a checkered cube. |
 |
Go to the Perspective view,
Right click on the word Perspective in that window, and select
Smooth + Highlights. And you should see....something... |
 |
Aww...gee....that doesn't
look very inspiring... What's going on? Well, the material
assigned to the Dash9 is a special material. It's called Multi/Sub-Object
and it is actually a collection of materials. In this case,
there are 6 different materials. When we assign this type
of material to an object, 3DSMAX makes a guess as to which
sub-material to assign to which face. In most cases, it's
usually wrong. We need to show 3DSMAX the right way.
Click on the Modify
tab. Now, in the Perspective window, click and drag
a rectangle selection box around all of our object to select
all of the faces. Next, go back to the Modify panel
and slide it up until you see a section called Surface
Properties. Under Surface Properties, you'll see
Material and under that you'll see ID: In the
text box right next to it, type in 6 - that's the material
ID for our new material.
|
 |
Well, now the object looks
all red. It's still not what we want. What are we missing? We're
missing mapping coordinates for our object. This tells 3DSMAX
how the texture is placed on our object. To do this, go to the
Modify panel and click on the down arrow in the box that
says Modifier List. Under UV Coordinate Modifiers,
select UVW map. |
 |
Hey! Look in the Perspective
window - a texture! |
 |
|