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.