Introduction to Texturing

I am now learning how to apply textures within 3ds Max. To apply textures you open Material Editor which is located on the Main Toolbar, This window displays shapes that show the texture when applied, a single scene can only use 24 materials. Here is what the Material Editor looks like:


The basic texture settings are within the Blinn Basic Parameters section. This section holds settings such as Ambient, Diffuse and Specular (colour), Opacity, Self-Illumination and Specular Highlights. Here I have demonstrated what they do:

Colour (Ambient and Diffuse)

 Self-Illumination. Two options - Colour which blends model into an overall colour decreasing shading amount or brightens model by changing the number amount)

 Specular Highlights increases brightness of light, glossiness and softness

 Opacity (transparency)

There is another section called Shader Basic Parameters which has a drop down menu to change Blinn to other options such as Metal, which changes the below section into Metal Basic Parameters that changes the result when applied. Also you can choose to wire which changes your 3d model into wireframe and 2 sided can help with planes as it applies the texture to both sides. Here I have changed the Shader into Metal creating a more reflective surface:

Next is applying Diffuse and Bump Maps. To apply a Map, you need to extend the Maps section and click ‘None’ next to the desired Map option, then a drop down menu will appear showing the various Maps you can choose. I have chosen Bitmap as I can apply a metal texture that I downloaded from Google Images. Keep in mind that I have not applied UVW Maps therefore the texture is not wrapping around the object but does take on the colour of the texture:

Now I am going to apply UVW Maps in the modifier list. This now shows a plane cage around my object but I changed this to cylindrical cage as I want the texture to wrap around my cylindrical model. When applying the UVW Maps it wraps the texture around the model from what I have assigned in the Material Editor and as you can see the texture is visible. You can now change the length, height, width and position of the texture by changing the numbers in the UVW Map modifier settings.
 

 










Here I have applied a texture to the surrounding planes by using Maps > Bitmap and choosing the initial texture.

Subdivision Modeling Method

Here is a hand made using Subdivision Modeling Methods in 3ds Max, also used other tools such as Soft Selection.

3d Project Completed

The objects are now finished. Here are the renders:

Half way point in 3d project.

I am half way through my first 3d modelling project.
I believe i am on track in terms of doing this work at home rather than in college. Although i have only started one of my objects which i am duplicating and using the noise to change them slightly (sandbags), but i have been focusing on the environment (trench) which the objects will be placed in, so that had taken more time than i hoped.
Once the sandbags are complete i will move onto the rifle which is another process that will take long, but when these objects are complete the other objects are rather easy.

3D Object Proposal

My first task in the 3d unit is to design 6 different objects surrounding a theme i have chosen.

To decide on a theme, i drawn several spider diagrams trying to think different environments and what objects would i see in these environments, i wrote down four different ideas, Living Room, WW1 Trench, Harry Potter Classroom and a Bar. In the end i chosen WW1 Trench as it seemed a unique and interesting idea and would show more of my skill in 3d.

These will be designed on 3ds Max showing various skills including box modelling, spline modelling and compound objects.

I intend to create objects surrounding a WW1 theme, these objects include a Lantern, crate, gun, bullet shells, trench/netting and sandbags. I intend to use skills such as extrude, bevel, chamfer, MeshSmooth, loft, lathe, boolean and pro boolean to find different ways of creating each object and add various detail.

Megacity

I was trying to create Megacity from Judge Dredd using black and white paintings in Photoshop to build up each part of the city.
At the bottom of the rendered image, it shows the buildings and eagle in Photoshop which then are transferred into 3d models using displace tool.
Also on the main building i used Soft Selection to make it look more unique, creating a curved dome top and curved sides to make it look like an eagle.

Mountains

This next tool called Displace allows you to take a grayscale painting from Photoshop into a 3ds Max plane and increasing the strength of displace makes it 3d. Simple yet effective tool useful for creating environment terrain.