| Listed in: | 3D Studio MAX |
| Date: | 2000-05-07 |
| Author: | ali |
| 17:27 | Antimorph: | What are you trying to model? |
| 17:28 | SKITCH2: | I am making a basic road surface |
| 17:28 | SKITCH2: | but I need to create hedges |
| 17:28 | Antimorph: | k |
| 17:28 | Antimorph: | will you drive on the hedges or are they decorative |
| 17:29 | SKITCH2: | drive on them |
| 17:29 | Antimorph: | kewl |
| 17:29 | SKITCH2: | up to a steep wall |
| 17:29 | Antimorph: | ok |
| 17:29 | Antimorph: | Is the road straight or curved? |
| 17:30 | SKITCH2: | curved |
| 17:31 | Antimorph: | Skitch: Since the road is curved you need to pick pretty organic textures for your road surface |
| 17:31 | Antimorph: | this is because you can't bend the bmp to fit the tile |
| 17:31 | SKITCH2: | yep got ya |
| 17:33 | Antimorph: | so skitch you need to use a pretty non descript texture for the road without many straight edges that would give the game away |
| 17:33 | Antimorph: | you can do one of a few things |
| 17:33 | SKITCH2: | ie:dirt? |
| 17:34 | Antimorph: | you can make a plane for the road with as many segments as you think suitable for the texture size you gonna use, and then |
| 17:34 | Antimorph: | build the curb as the curved piece and worry about the textures there |
| 17:34 | Antimorph: | or you can make a plane with as many segments as you need and curve the "road" with the FFD box modifier |
| 17:34 | Antimorph: | to make it the shape you want |
| 17:34 | SKITCH2: | ok cool |
| 17:35 | Antimorph: | The texture i'm assuming will be a subsection of a bmp? |
| 17:35 | SKITCH2: | yep |
| 17:36 | Antimorph: | ok, use the edit mesh, subobject polygon to |
| 17:36 | Antimorph: | select the squares that form the plane, there are a few ways to do this |
| 17:36 | Antimorph: | you can either select all the faces together and apply a UVW map to them |
| 17:37 | Antimorph: | followed by UVW unwrap, and "fold" the virtual polygons on top of one another |
| 17:37 | SKITCH2: | yep |
| 17:37 | Antimorph: | one of the artifacts of this is that you can create swirls |
| 17:37 | Antimorph: | as the adjacent polygons are actually the mirror of the neighboring one |
| 17:37 | Antimorph: | and most tilable textures are only seemless |
| 17:38 | Antimorph: | if you lay them next to each other |
| 17:38 | Antimorph: | depending on how you made the texture, mirror tilable, or adjacent tilable |
| 17:38 | Antimorph: | there is another method you can use |
| 17:38 | SKITCH2: | yea |
| 17:39 | Antimorph: | to map adjacent tilable select polygons that are non-contiguous, for instance your creating a checker board of selected polygons |
| 17:39 | Antimorph: | but without polygons touching each other, even in the diagonal |
| 17:39 | Antimorph: | then uvw map this sub-selection of the road, and apply your unwrap modifer |
| 17:40 | Antimorph: | and move all the virtual polygons on top of one another, use weld to get perfect alignment |
| 17:40 | Antimorph: | put them roughly in the area of the bmp you want to use for the tile |
| 17:41 | Antimorph: | are you with me so far Skitch? |
| 17:41 | SKITCH2: | i am |
| 17:42 | Antimorph: | kewl, so you roughly placed these polygons that make a subsection of your road |
| 17:42 | Antimorph: | for the polys that are non square, depending on the acuteness of your curve |
| 17:42 | Antimorph: | just line them up on top of the square ones |
| 17:42 | Antimorph: | if the angle of the bend is very acute |
| 17:43 | Antimorph: | the texturing won't look as natural, but hey ho |
| 17:43 | SKITCH2: | hehe |
| 17:43 | Antimorph: | you'll have to experiment |
| 17:43 | SKITCH2: | i will indeed |
| 17:43 | Antimorph: | ok, so once you mapped one checkerboard, move on to the next |
| 17:43 | Antimorph: | for any plane, to do the whole thing you have four operations |
| 17:44 | Antimorph: | when they're all mapped roughly, select all the polygons that make the plane |
| 17:44 | Antimorph: | dont't uvw map |
| 17:44 | Antimorph: | go straight to unwrap |
| 17:44 | SKITCH2: | yep |
| 17:44 | Antimorph: | and weld all the vertices together for the corners |
| 17:44 | SKITCH2: | ok |
| 17:44 | Antimorph: | then zoom in and press the pixel snap icon bottom right |
| 17:45 | Antimorph: | line up the corners of the virtual polys on the bmp |
| 17:45 | Antimorph: | but leave a one pixel gap at the edge |
| 17:45 | SKITCH2: | yep |
| 17:45 | Antimorph: | because RV uses antialiasing between adjacent pixels |
| 17:45 | SKITCH2: | got ya |
| 17:45 | Antimorph: | if you don't have an edge, you get bleed from the |
| 17:46 | Antimorph: | bmp subsection adjacent to the one your using |
| 17:46 | Antimorph: | all will become clear. Any questions? |
| 17:46 | SKITCH2: | not yet but i hant tried it yet hehe |
| 17:47 | Antimorph: | you'll need to map your hedges in a seperate operation |
| 17:47 | SKITCH2: | yep |
| 17:47 | Antimorph: | it will not be worth, tiling them |
| 17:47 | Antimorph: | if you gonna have rough hedges |
| 17:47 | Antimorph: | if they're manicured ones, you'll have more luck |
| 17:47 | SKITCH2: | yep |
| 17:48 | Antimorph: | don't map |
| 17:48 | Antimorph: | surfaces that are at right angles to each other |
| 17:48 | SKITCH2: | they will be pretty smoth |
| 17:48 | Antimorph: | in a single operation |
| 17:48 | Antimorph: | so do the top of the hedge |
| 17:48 | Antimorph: | and then the sides, or you could experiment |
| 17:48 | SKITCH2: | ok |
| 17:49 | Antimorph: | with a plugin called texporter |
| 17:49 | Antimorph: | I haven't used it much |
| 17:49 | SKITCH2: | ok |
| 17:49 | Antimorph: | so i'm not the one to explain |
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