Texturing

Pressure! argh! Stop looking at me!

And on a more serious and less insane note...
I use Max 4.x at home and 5.x at work; max 4 has a free downloadable plugin called unrapper which is a direct port of max 5.x's UV tools with some added functionality and logic. I really prefer to use this over any other unwrapping method and tool for speed and ease of use. My workflow generally goes like this when unwrapping:

unrapper modifier/max5 unwrap modifier > edit uv's > select by faces an area (eg arm, or head) > mapping/flatten mapping > figure out where my seams will be > seperate and stitch pieces togethor, welding neighbouring verts togethor while still minimising distortion > repeat

Sounds like a lot, but really is a very stream lined process - unwrapping a segment like a leg, or face or arm in under 5 mins with well placed seam lines and minimised distortion. After you're all done, chucking on a checker texture in the viewport and tweaking and then sorting the sheet ready for export, a normal 1500 poly character is unwrapped in around half an hour to an hour.

I get an error message for that plugin and i'm using 4.2. I think i'd just like to use the basic tools that already come with max although I do have Texporter, can anyone tell me of tutorials or something.

okay, well anything below max 5.x is extremely cumbersome and beyond what I'm prepared to type out here sorry [:)]

sooooooo... tutorials! your best bet would be the polycount tutorials thread - http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~polycount/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000644.html?00063
Find all the relevant stuff and go at it. There's probably a fair figure of over a hundred different techniques and methods people unwrap, so I'd suggest trying out as many as you can to find the thing that's right for you.

Hey Styles have you got a link to that unwrapper plugin for MAX4?

not on hand - I tried googling, and got this link:
http://old.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/planetquake/polycount/Tools/discre…

but you need to login with gamespy login and I haven't checked if it's live. Google for "unrapper" (no 'w')

note: you'll need max 4.2 (with the update)

if i modeled it in edit poly can i map and unwrap as a edit poly or do i have to convert it to a mesh.

Try lithunwrap, and or Ultimate Unwrap, I use them, good programs.

bullet: edit poly and edit mesh are only a front end to the mesh - so all they do is give you different ways to view the data and edit it with different tools. So you can swap and switch between edit mesh and edit poly as you so choose. If you collapse down and it turns to edit mesh, and you want poly, simply right click on the stack and hit collapse to edit poly.

Does anyone know what the material ID method is. I've heard of it but don't know what it is. The UVW mapping is very hard. I always end up getting a mess

Hey Bullet, I think before you continue on with your persistent questioning that you should go through the Max tutorials, they're an excellent starting point for all aspects of Max and cover most of what you've been asking about. Just go up to the help menu and click on tutorials, or even better, if you've got GMax go through those tutorials, they're aimed specifically at the gaming workflow.

I'm not having a go at you for asking questions, I just think you'd be better off doing the tutorials first, then come to Sumea for any other questions.

Well i did look at them, and didn't find them very helpful, that's Y i asked.

neither did i, especially for actually unwrapping and producing a decent texture sheet to paint on - i dont think it even touches on this subject at all, and im using max 6.0 with the additional tutorials...

[:(]

JI: do you guys (industry) use alot of the automatic flatten mapping in max ??

ive never really delved into it... but that 1/2 hour to an hour to unwrap a 1500 poly character sounds bloody brill to me [:)]

well, we get the job done to the best quality in the time we have - I can only talk for myself, but personally I use the flatten as a base to start from - it breaks everything apart into small chunks and lays everything out in no logical order or sorting but without distortion, and ready for you to stitch back togethor manually and judge seams vs. distortion balance quickly and intuitively.

Just remember - just because it automates that doesn't mean it's an automatic process. There is no easy fix, it's just a way to get a cleaner base to start from.

Is it ok to use two planar maps, one for the front and one for the back, then unwrap it. I mean like part by part, you know planar map for the front of the arm then another for the back of the arm, a planar map for the front of the torso then another for the back of the torso....... so on
Or will this cause distortion. I have read the max help file but i didn't find the tutorials useful at all.

Also how come when i unwrap it then collapse the stack, what i unwrapped before disappears. Everything i unwrapped before can't be seen. Even if i apply another UWVunwrap. It's hard to know where to place things for the texporter if i can't see everything in the edit window.

once youve done your first unwrap - lets say its an arm - and youve arranged all the UV's in the edit uv window, once your happy with it i usually select all the verts and move them out of the bitmap square ( marked in the uv edit window ) of to the side somewhere.

Then i collapse the stack - apply a UnwrapUVW modifier and usually see a massive mess + my nicely flattened out bit off to the side where i left it.

i found this to be the biggest hurdle for me learning to model - something im still trying to come to grips with - if you want a more in depth hand bullet21, ill write you a step by step - as to what i do when im unwrapping a character... let me know.

oh please do, i can't find any good tutes out there. I'll be forever grateful. Just one thing though i am using 4.2. [:)]

cos you see it's not just the unwrapping i'm havin trouble with it's the whole mapping concept.

Bullet, when I mentioned the tutorials I was specifically responding to your query about material ID's and multi/sub materials. There is definitely a tutorial for that. As for unwrapping there should be one also, they use a biplane for the example.

WizenedOldMan - that tutorial on unwrapping that bi-plane really sux - it gives you a insite in unwrapping something i agree with that - but for a beginner trying to use those methods on a character - like i was a wee while back, i found them almost obsolete.

One thing i found with discreet - is thats one thing they dont have, i mean they shouw you how to build & rig a character - why not continue that on and show you how to unwrap him as well - i think that would benefit people a shitload more than showong someone how to build a character - rig a spider then unwrap a plane, then show you how to animate a walk cycle in biped for a horse... ill have my rant and rave, cos i know just how frustrated i was when i was first trying to find shit to help me out - turns out i had to badger a guy i knew to show me how he unwrapped characters before i cud even begin to understand how the whole unwrap stuff worked....

Bullet21 - I recall you saying that you worked with max 4.2 - unfortunately i dont have max4.2, and i dont know how different it is from max 6.0 ive only ever played with the dos max up to version 3.0 then from version 5 and now im using max 6.0. i do know its got a few advancements in the unwrap / edit uvw department as well... so what i could do is next character i do - ill write it down and post it to you - not sure about how much it will actually help you tho [:?]

thanx mate, a true help

and yeah i agree with that discreet thing, i guess it would be helpful if they told you how to model, texture, rig and animate the same character that way you would also have some inspiration to do your next big project by yourself. But everything is done differantly. That's what confused me as well. You can't understand about unwrapping a charcter when they are showing you how to unwrap a plane. I think they are very diferant things.