Question about 3Ds Max UV Mapping with multiple UV Maps

Runsva

Hello!

I've just recently started 3D Modelling, specifically to mod a game. I've been trying to add new units, and new models for those units. The game is basically about World War 2 in the Pacific, so mostly warships for now.

Anyways, I recently extracted this model of a battleship from a different game. The model came in two parts, each part with a unique UV Map for a unique texture file. One for the color texture and one with the ambient occlusion texture. I have them both imported into 3Ds Max, as you can see from the picture below:

Picture of the models

Top model displays the Color Texture, while the bottom one displays the Ambient Occlusion Texture. (For the record, the textures displayed below are in low res because I believe 3Ds Max automatically displays them in low res when previewing. The textures themselves are high quality.)

My main question is: is it possible to somehow unite the two UV Maps, to have them both display on the same model, with their appropriate texture (so with each UV Map having their own material), and have the Ambient Occlusion Texture display over the Color one? If so, how?

There was also a UV Map for the Ambient Occlusion Texture that came separately in a ".uvw" format. I have been messing around for the past few days, trying to find guides online on help with this, I cannot appear to find out how to make this work. I tried to map separate UV Channels for each of the UV Map, while I unwrapped the UV Layer, however I cannot find a way of displaying the UV maps on the same model with different textures.

For the record, I am a huge rookie with all of the 3D Modelling stuff, as I said previously, I have just recently gotten into it, and this is so far the biggest challenge I have to face.

I use the 2010 version of 3Ds Max.

Please let me know if any of you could help me regarding this, because I'm clueless! 😔

Thank you in advance!

poopipe

You can select which mapping channel is used by each bitmap in the material editor

Runsva

poopipe said:

You can select which mapping channel is used by each bitmap in the material editor

But it appears I cannot have two materials assigned to the same object.

poopipe

Put the bitmaps into one material and apply it to the whole model

If you want the occlusion to behave like occlusion simply plug it into the right channel, 

If you want to multiply the occlusion over the diffuse you'll need to composite the two textures in the material before plugging them into the diffuse slot.  

Runsva

poopipe said:

Put the bitmaps into one material and apply it to the whole model

If you want the occlusion to behave like occlusion simply plug it into the right channel, 

If you want to multiply the occlusion over the diffuse you'll need to composite the two textures in the material before plugging them into the diffuse slot.  

I keep setting the diffuse and occlusion maps to separate UV Channels, however it does not appear to have any effect at all if I switch between the channels shown or on the editable poly, setting the Ambient Occlusion texture I have to the Ambient map in the 'Maps' menu in the Material Editor does not appear to have any effect, the ambient occlusion map cannot be seen. Also, can I have two separate UV maps assigned to the model? As the Color texture and the Ambient Occlusion texture have different UV maps that have to be mapped to them so they are displayed correctly.

Here is the picture showing what I did and my problem:

Eric Chadwick

Does the model actually have 2 UV channels on it? Tools menu, Channel Info, to see if there's data in each.

Add a UVW Unwrap modifier to verify the UV layout matches the texture layout.

To see the texture in the Viewport, use Show Map in Viewport.

Max viewport doesn't show 2 UVs at the same time, unless you use a specific material setup, or a custom .fx shader.

Read about it in the help.

Runsva

Eric Chadwick said:

Does the model actually have 2 UV channels on it? Tools menu, Channel Info, to see if there's data in each.

Add a UVW Unwrap modifier to verify the UV layout matches the texture layout.

To see the texture in the Viewport, use Show Map in Viewport.

Max viewport doesn't show 2 UVs at the same time, unless you use a specific material setup, or a custom .fx shader.

Read about it in the help.

Okay, so I opened the Channel Info Tab, and I can see that the two channels are mapped to different UV Maps:



When you say "Max viewport doesn't show 2 UVs at the same time" I'm assuming you mean that I cannot display both of the textures overlayed over each other in the model preview. So, I assigned the Ambient Occlusion Texture for the "Ambient" map in the 'Maps' section. However, I'm still a bit confused on how I should set it up exactly.

This is how I set up the diffuse and ambient texture, the textures are set appropriately.


However, I'm not sure of how exactly how to set up the channel mappings.
Right now, I have the Ambient Occlusion Texture (the top one in the picture above) set up so it displays at channel 1 which has it's appropriate UV Map, and that works fine, as shown in the image underneath:



However, when I look at my Color Texture, which is supposed to be mapped to Channel 2 and supposed to have it's own UV Map set to the channel, the tetxure looks off, and looks as if it is mapping to the incorrect UV map. This is all shown by the following image:



I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly, so if you see anything I did wrong please let me know.

Also idk if all these pictures help you visualise the problem better, so sorry if it looks really confusing!

Eric Chadwick

What is your goal with this model? If you are exporting to a game engine, it's a waste of effort to try to render it in 3ds Max.

The Viewport preview sometimes has trouble switching between Uvs when showing textures.

Ambient occlusion map is an optimization for game rendering only. It is not used in 3ds Max, because Max generates occlusion dynamically every time you render.

The "Standard" material is old, it does not support PBR, and the Ambient Color input is not the same as Ambient Occlusion.

Runsva

Eric Chadwick said:

What is your goal with this model? If you are exporting to a game engine, it's a waste of effort to try to render it in 3ds Max.

The Viewport preview sometimes has trouble switching between Uvs when showing textures.

Ambient occlusion map is an optimization for game rendering only. It is not used in 3ds Max, because Max generates occlusion dynamically every time you render.

The "Standard" material is old, it does not support PBR, and the Ambient Color input is not the same as Ambient Occlusion.

So my goal is to basically make the two textures:



Display on the same model, so it looks something like this:



So it does not matter whether they display correctly in 3Ds Max at all?

Eric Chadwick

If you want to render in the game engine, then no.