[3DS MAX] Someone explain to me how textures work

DarkFire002

I downloaded an object made up of flowers from the internet, together with the object there were 3 different textures attached for the different types of flowers. When I open the object it is a single block and if I try to drag and drop the image on the object it applies it to all. If I try to explode the object, thousands of petals are created and I should apply the texture to each of them. How do you apply 3 textures at the same time to an object without going crazy? Thank you

Fabi_G

Hi! Does the combined object not have 3 materials assigned to it? Not a Max User, but I think you'd want to feed the textures into the materials used by the object through the material editor. Perhaps going through the Max documentation you figure this out (Texture, Example of using Maps).

DarkFire002

Hi, no the object has no materials assigned and from the material editor, which opens by pressing M there is no node. In my opinion it is impossible that there are no materials assigned to the file but I do not know how to check this. I have searched several times both on the internet and on youtube but no one talks about it. I know how to assign materials to my object but I do not know how to do it with one downloaded from the internet.

Fabi_G

Hm, perhaps material IDs got lost, in which case you would have to re-assign them manually. Perhaps you can speed this process up by selecting geometry by UV islands. But yeah, without being able to look at the files one can only guess. You could zip and share files or link to the asset if you want it looked at (that's assuming the asset is free to use). 

When looking for information, I find searching the applications documentation the best starting point.

DarkFire002

Sure, I attach the link to download the model. Thank you so much for trying to help me but I tried all the solutions found on the internet but I could not find the right one.

https://www.cgtrader.com/free-3d-models/plant/flower/bouquet-sef-flower

Fabi_G

Hi! Had a look at the .obj in Blender and the material IDs were indeed not correct. Selected geometry by UVs and assigned materials according to texture sets (sent via DM).

I don't know what your plan is with the asset, got to say I think it's pretty un-optimised (~1.7 million tris, some iffy UVs + wasted texture space).

Edit: Here are the steps taken to assign material IDs for each texture set:
1 - Selection across UV editor and 3D view is synced. Selected vases, applied material, hid

2 - Flower parts remained
3 - Selected geometry by UV islands in UV editor using texture sets as a guide, assigned material IDs to selection, then hid.