The image above was created and textured in 3DS max8. I would like to achieve the same result in Poser6. I should also mention it was rendered in Max aswell.

Message edited on: 02/08/2006 19:02

<strong>bandolin</strong><br />
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This is what I get in Poser.

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Here are the problems.

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Do I need to split this obj into several pieces and texture them in the material room? If so, I would then have to create this as a .pz file for import into Poser. How do people texture complex meshes?

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I think they use UVMapper. :) I don't use Max, but the way I texture an item for Poser is to model the different material zones, then texture them in Poser.

It looks like the corridors on Enterprise..;) gad I watch too much TV..;)

Bandolin, if your mesh is all one object, then you need to assign a multi-subobject material to the object first, inside of Max. You'll need to add material ID's to the object at the sub-object level (sounds harder than it is). It's really not that complicated to do, and you don't need UVMapper for any of it.

I assume you're pretty new to Max, and got it specifically for this task? If so, you might want to invest some time in learning the app to a greater degree before jumping into Poser content creation, or exporting things to other applications. There's a process involved, and you're missing a few basic steps by the sound of things you've indicated in this thread, as well as several others you made in the Max forums. ;-)

Message edited on: 02/08/2006 21:15

Also Max doesn't deal with UVMapping the same way as Poser. You defenitely need to redo the UVs in UVMapper. Also, you should get Hab's OBJ plugins for MAX. They do a better job of I/O OBJ formats then does Max's default one... As for the "Grainy" look on the panels, that's a "Noise" shader(Native to MAX), so, you'll have to make a "Noise" texture in a paint prog, unless P5/6 has a "Noise" node? For the "Lite" panels, just increase the "ambient" setting of it towards White. Anyways, don't give up! My "Failed" attempts in 3D surpass my successes. But, it's still Fun notheless. :-)) Marcus

P5/6 does have a "noise" node.

Indeed randym77! I've been kinda behind everyone, i'm still using PPP. Maybe, it's time for me to get with the program(Pun intended) & buy P6... :-) Marcus

" Also Max doesn't deal with UVMapping the same way as Poser. You defenitely need to redo the UVs in UVMapper." What exactly does that mean? UVunwrap modifier in Max does all the same methods of unwrapping a mesh that UVmapper does. Poser will handle the resulting UV coordinates exactly the same. I dont see what the difference would be at all. "As for the "Grainy" look on the panels, that's a "Noise" shader(Native to MAX), so, you'll have to make a "Noise"texture in a paint prog, unless P5/6 has a "Noise" node?" Procedural noise in Max can be baked to a bitmap texture if you want it in the UV map. Poser 5/6 also has a noise node that's basically the same (procedural).

"Also, you should get Hab's OBJ plugins for MAX. They do a better job of I/O OBJ formats then does Max's default one..." Hmmm. I'm confused on this one too. Max 8 already has Hab's OBJ import/export as it's default one. It's the same thing. It's also default with version 7. All other versions actually required the plugin because Max didn't have OBJ support at all.

Maxxx, Thanks for correcting me. The last Max version i have is 4. Stil no excuse, for my misinformation. Forgot about the "baking" possbility & i did say that i didn't know if there was such a node in poser5/6. Again, my bad on the .obj i/o capabilities of Max. I did read he had version 8, just mixed his 8 with my 4. That said, i will refrain from giving any advise on MAX in the future. :-) Marcus

"if your mesh is all one object, then you need to assign a multi-subobject material to the object first" Maxx,I tend to apply materials by selecting facets and applying a material,I never use multi-subs for that..is there an advantage I'm missing in not doing that? as for uv mapper,if your modelling in max then you don't need it,modelling a complete mesh & then uv mapping it is counter productive..especially if your modelling hard surfaces like bandolin where you have many repeating elements, model one of those elements,then uv map it,then do all your cloning & the mapping will follow also once your in P5/6 you could add an alpha map to the ambient material,it will add a bit of a fake glow to the lights,rather than having a solid colour Draconian..there's still alot of max 4 users around,I'd suggest you DONT refrain from giving advice in the future,I for one know nothing of max 4..other than it's very old :)..I'm familiar with max5 & up,& even then it's such a heavy beast I only know parts of it ps:Bandolin,for anything lower than P6 you might want to split the verts on the mesh to get the nice crisp edges on your first render..in P6 you can use the crease dial the same way you'd use the smooth modifier from 3dsMax

@ pakled: You are correct sir.

@ maxxmodelz: What you are saying makes sense to me about multi-sub object. Its very similar to assigning different materials to surfaces of the same mesh in Wings. I didn't get Max specifically to create Poser content. I just wanted to move up from Wings3D. But when I saw an item for sale by a guy who only started 3D modeling 6 months ago, I thought why can't I? So, I'll tackle the multi-sub object tutorial a couple more times. If you know of any others other than the still life one included with Max, I'd appreciate the link.

There's a process involved, and you're missing a few basic steps

Yes indeed. Those few basic steps is what I'm asking for. I followed your suggestion from the Max forum and collapsed the mesh, but that didn't seem to do anything.

Procedural noise in Max can be baked to a bitmap texture if you want it in the UV map

I have no idea how to do this. Any rate, the noise in the first render is simply a texture I created in Photoshop.

@ Stonemason: Maxx,I tend to apply materials by selecting facets and applying a material

Isn't that multi/sub object? If it isn't now I'm really confused. At any rate, your method is how I made my model above. Those separate materials simply don't appear in Poser when I render it.

model one of those elements,then uv map it,then do all your cloning & the mapping will follow

I understand what you're saying here, its just I don't know how to go about doing that in Max. I guess this is what I'm asking. How do you UV map something in Max? I know that UVMapper exports a texture template which you import into a Paint Program to texture. Does Max operate the same way?

also once your in P5/6 you could add an alpha map to the ambient material,it will add a bit of a fake glow to the lights,rather than having a solid colour

Ooooh, I love the sound of that. How do you do that?

Bandolin,for anything lower than P6 you might want to split the verts on the mesh to get the nice crisp edges on your first render..in P6 you can use the crease dial the same way you'd use the smooth modifier from 3dsMax

No clue what you're talking about here, sorry. Split the vertices? Use crease dial?

As you can see, I'm hopeless. I hope you guys will take pity on me and answer these burning questions. Edited for spelling

Message edited on: 02/09/2006 06:56

<strong>bandolin</strong><br />
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If you're new to 3ds max, then get one of the books like "3ds max Bible" by Kelly Murdock, "3ds Max Quickstart Guide by Michele Matossiani, "3ds max Essentials" (I forgot who wrote that one). or one of the other Max references. They are available for several different versions of Max from 3 to 8, so make sure you get the one for your version of Max.

Message edited on: 02/09/2006 08:04

"sorry. Split the vertices? Use crease dial?" ignoring poser for a moment,with your mesh inside 3dsmax apply a 'smooth' modifier & adjust the dial..see the way the mesh changes smoothness?..push it up to 180 & it will look downright ugly..lower it down to 30 & it should look nice & crisp. the crease dial in Poser works in a similar way, alpha mapped ambient material.."Ooooh, I love the sound of that. How do you do that?" see the attached pic for the material setup I use. you use an alpha texture(a black & white texture) the same as you would for a trans map..whatever is black doesn't reveal the underlying colour..whatever is white does. I'm not sure how applicable it is in the real world though..in that I dont think lights act like that,I just do it because it looks cool,I use the same technique for sci-fi console displays :) the gather node is another way to make stuff glow..but I don't wanna confuse you too much,Little dragon is the man to see for all things gatherable ;) your materials are being imported into poser(you can tell by the lights & plaques being a different colour),but your texture maps aren't,remember you need to manually apply these texture maps inside Poser,materials are inbuilt in the obj & come in by default..but the texture maps themselves(the jpgs) wont come in,go into the material room & the drop down list will display all your materials..for each material that neeeds it apply your texture map. for uv mapping in max,that's an art in itself,I'd suggest hunting down some tutorials on that,though I'd suggest the wall you've shown doesn't have any major extrusions so you'd be best just applying a simple planar map. also remember you'll need to open the 'UVW modifier' & make manual adjustments to get the map looking perfect.. your wall is longer than it is tall & the planar map you give it will be arranged to fit the square shape of the uvw window,you should then select all the uv's & scale them to more accurately match the shape of your wall. applying the checkerboard material is a good way to check for uv stretching Max exports templates via the edit uvw modifier window,it's under 'tools' good luck & ahh..rtfm ;)

Thanks a bunch Maxx & stonemason. I'll be going to sleep less stupid tonight. I have rtfm. Its great for explaining what individual things do, but not so good at where to use them. And I'm too stupid to figure it out. Sorry. :(

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aye..& no offence meant by rftm,but it really is the best software manual I've ever seen & is well regarded for what it offers I've rarely done any tutorials for 3dsMax,mostly I just use the manual & it's search feature

Max 4 and 5 came with an enormous book of tutorials (in addition to the multi-volume manual. Max is really unusual in that it's documentation is so well done. Most graphics software, like Poser, Bryce, Vue, Shade and Carrara have manuals that are not really that useful, but Max's documentation is the best.

"Maxx,I tend to apply materials by selecting facets and applying a material,I never use multi-subs for that..is there an advantage I'm missing in not doing that?"

Hmmm. I'm not sure how you assign a material to selected polygons without giving them a new material ID. Let's say, for instance, you have a square with a bitmap assigned to it. Now you want 4 different bitmaps to appear on each of the four sides. What I would do is go into sub-object mode, select one side, assign a new mat ID (say, 2), then select another, give it a mat ID of 3, then finally select the last side, and give it an ID of 4. Then I just create a multi-suboject material in the mat editor with 4 mat levels to it, and assign it to the square. Whatever materials I assign to each number of the sub-object material will appear in the corresponding material ID I've assigned to the square. :-)

I suppose the advantage is organization (all your materials in one place in the editor), plus Poser seems to read them just fine (should point out that you still have to assign the bitmaps yourself). In fact, when you export a figure from Poser into 3dsmax as an OBJ, they are read as/converted to multi-subobject materials. Message edited on: 02/09/2006 12:50

ahh mine are getting a unique ID,just that I'm not doing it via multi-subs,I drag & drop my material from the material editor.each slot gets a new id, I have noticed that an imported mesh has multi-subs,& that's the only time I ever use them, I'm thinking here of one of my models with nearly 100 materials.all combined into one multisub & max was too slow to use

I agree Maxx, once you learn to use 'Mulit/Sub' Mats it makes more sense. Although, my putter was not very powerful back then. So, my limit was 20 subs per set. Anyways, i hated having to scroll through long lists. LOL Stonemason, thanks for the "pep talk". But, the reason i should refrain from helping with MAX questions is that i haven't use it in a bit(except to convert .max files). So, there are "Gaps" in my memory from lack of use. & there's lots more proficient folks in MAX then me here. I've switched to C4D, because it's workflow better suits my needs & those of my clients... Marcus