Tutorial 2: More Basic Modelling and Texture Mapping part 2

 

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!

 

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