Creating Rooms in 3DS Max
Hello, I'm new here, thought this was an incredible community to join as it is primarily focused in games as opposed to million poly renders. I have a little problem, (probably a very basic one) but I can't seem to get my head around it.
Software Used: (Just in case)
3DS Max 2010
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Unity Engine
I am using the Unity engine to create a demo for my Final Major Project due to the ease of coding (Javascript) I feel it is more flexible than Source and Unreal. The problem I am facing is that I am used to building geometry in the editor and applying a texture and it tiling perfectly (corner seams easily adjusted by offsets). Now in Unity (I think) the only way to import a room is by making a box in the 3D program (6 planes faced inwards is how I've done it) and texturing it from there. The room is a little more complex than a box now but I have faced a few problems with even that as the seams between the corner points never seem to fit correctly.
I have tried box mapping, UV Mapping and none of it seems to fit perfectly, UV Mapping is my weakest area, however I think I am going about it the right way in that I should flip faces and weld the connecting edges. With a simple square box I can manage this but my room has a few more sides and each face is a different length so in the UV the faces are not making it the full length of the textured area, expanding the face the full length creates a mismatch in brick size.
I have thought about a quick fix and making 256 height by 512 width planes and applying a tileable texture of the same size onto the plane, then I could copy, move and rotate it anyway giving quite a lot of flexibility with the room, but is this really the most efficient way to go about it?
I hope that I have made myself clear and people can understand my problem.
Thanks a lot in advance :poly121: apologies if this question is a little too basic.
Steve
Software Used: (Just in case)
3DS Max 2010
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Unity Engine
I am using the Unity engine to create a demo for my Final Major Project due to the ease of coding (Javascript) I feel it is more flexible than Source and Unreal. The problem I am facing is that I am used to building geometry in the editor and applying a texture and it tiling perfectly (corner seams easily adjusted by offsets). Now in Unity (I think) the only way to import a room is by making a box in the 3D program (6 planes faced inwards is how I've done it) and texturing it from there. The room is a little more complex than a box now but I have faced a few problems with even that as the seams between the corner points never seem to fit correctly.
I have tried box mapping, UV Mapping and none of it seems to fit perfectly, UV Mapping is my weakest area, however I think I am going about it the right way in that I should flip faces and weld the connecting edges. With a simple square box I can manage this but my room has a few more sides and each face is a different length so in the UV the faces are not making it the full length of the textured area, expanding the face the full length creates a mismatch in brick size.
I have thought about a quick fix and making 256 height by 512 width planes and applying a tileable texture of the same size onto the plane, then I could copy, move and rotate it anyway giving quite a lot of flexibility with the room, but is this really the most efficient way to go about it?
I hope that I have made myself clear and people can understand my problem.
Thanks a lot in advance :poly121: apologies if this question is a little too basic.
Steve
Replies
It sounds like you're trying to apply a texture without spending too much time in the UV editor. If all the walls are to receive the same texture maps then a tiling texture would be the way to go.
Now I really am not by any means a pro with tiling textures as I have barely ever used them. However, I think you have two options.
Firstly, you could get all of your walls and cut the UV's so every face has an individual UV shell. Make a perfectly tiling texture map with a full height of brick courses (or whatever material you're using) that you intend to have (so if you want it to be 32 bricks high, make the texture 32 bricks high) , and place the UVs of every face over that one map, so the UVs overlap, but the top and bottom of each face UVs should be perfectly aligned if you see what I mean. So now you'll have the texture applied to fit vertically, and just move the individual UV shells horizontally until you get the bricks looking right at the corners. You could tile it vertically too of course but unless you've got a room with very tall walls, it probably won't be necessary and using this overlapping UV method would mean making a bunch of unnecessary horizontal edges.
The other way would be to get a perfectly tiling texture, and lay all the wall UVs out flat and stitch them at each vertical edge, and lay them out in a long strip so that they run off the edge of the 0-1 UV space, this will tile your texture horizontally, although you wont have control over the texture at the corners and if you're going for realism with how brick walls are constructed, it will be obvious that the texture is tiles since it'll just 'wrap around' the corners.
I hope I've explained that well enough, post some pics of your UV's if you still have probs. And someone may be able to give you a better way of doing it!
Sorry for the lack of explanation, I had kinda just woken up and it was annoying me a little, thanks for the tips, if this method fails me with anything else I think one of your approaches would be beneficial. I think I just rush the UV part a little, but I am learning to approach it with a little less haste.
Thanks again
I came from an Arch-Viz background where you can just slap a Box UVW on every structural element and play with the spinners till it looked right, and the idea of having to unwrap everything piece by piece was pretty daunting, but when you get used to it and see the benefits it becomes something you don't mind doing, still often mind-numbingly tedious, but you see the importance of getting it right.