FSXA Gmax and unwrapping

[Tejal Bernardo]

I'm training unwrap uvw ,a box with a texures sheets with diferents numbers, so applying diferents number to each face, just that, but in some way the textures appear in a wrong way, it's not centered as supposed must be, what could be wrong, should I apply an uvw map before?
I'll attch a image to explain better the question than this poor english., you will see the right side of the box (and all sides the same effect), is no well textured.

 

[tgibson]

Make sure the bitmaps are 24 bit BMP files, or PSD files. Other formats can be shifted in GMAX.

Hope this helps,

 

[arno]

Hi,

Usually I first do a uvw mapping to get the texture roughly in place. Then I use the uvw unwrap to position it exactly. But that is not required as far as I know.

Send from my phone using Tapatalk, so excuse the short sentences and possible typos

 

[bob5568]

do you know how to edit uvw mapping?

 

[Kai503]

There are many ways to do it. That's how I do it:

- Make sure every poly has an individual ID
- Apply the uvw modifier. Box mapping, length, width and heigth the same value.
- Apply uvw unwrap. Edit uvw's, select each ID and move it out of the box. Pick the texture and move each poly to the right place.
- Done

Kai

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

Thanks to all, I tried all those methods, I made a little trick and made a perfect square texture, 512x512 and cut the texture to show only the numbers, and worked, could be the texture format too, I think this was dxt1 because I get them from and addon, but I thought that if used in a scenery should be perfect to work for unwarraping, anyway you can understand how weird this things could look. thanks again.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

It was not the texture, it was a bmp 24 bit 512x512 pixels. I convert the textures to jpg and all the same, but could be fixed anyway but I can't think of what could be the problem.

 

[Ztimbre]

There are many ways to do it. That's how I do it:

- Make sure every poly has an individual ID
- Apply the uvw modifier. Box mapping, length, width and heigth the same value.
- Apply uvw unwrap. Edit uvw's, select each ID and move it out of the box. Pick the texture and move each poly to the right place.
- Done

Kai

Hi, you can save some steps here....

No need to mess with material IDs at all, unless you are doing a multi-material.

-Apply uvw map to whole box, size as you say.
-Choose 'poly select' modifier. Chose one face.
-Apply 'uvw unwrap' modifier. Open and move face out of the way.
-Repeat for remaining faces.
-Apply poly select modifier and choose all faces.
-Apply 'uvw unwrap' modifier and position all faces as necessary.
-Collapse stack at end.

You can simply this even further by only doing 'poly select' for all the faces, and using the 'view selected' option in the uvw editor to view and position the face of interest.

Not trying to be rude, of course. As mentioned, there are many ways of doing this. I just hate to see anyone using materials ID to isolate polygons, since it is a very time consuming process!

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

A silly question, when you work with "multimaterial" how is supposed you get the "fsx material"?, not should the objects have fsx material '

 

[hcornea]

When you work with a multimaterial in FSX you should construct the material yourself.

You can drag FSX materials from the Material Navigator to the Multimaterial slots in the Material editor.

In 3DSMax, you can do similarly, but you can also construct FSX materials in the MultiMat slots.

Doing this, then deleting all other material instances keeps your material editor nice and tidy.

 

[n4gix]

Not trying to be rude, of course. As mentioned, there are many ways of doing this. I just hate to see anyone using materials ID to isolate polygons, since it is a very time consuming process!

When a "cube" (box) is created, each face already has a Material ID assigned automatically...

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

All right, the trick is to drag from material navigator the fsx material to the multimaterial slots,

 

[JRobinson]

-Apply uvw map to whole box, size as you say.
-Choose 'poly select' modifier. Chose one face.
-Apply 'uvw unwrap' modifier. Open and move face out of the way.
-Repeat for remaining faces.

Maybe I'm missing something as I've only built a few hundred models so far, but if you also apply a UVW unwrap to the entire box, can you not expand the modifier and choose "select face", then in the UVW editor click the little red triangle to hide unselected UVWs and move the selected face wherever you want? That's the way I've always done it anyway...

Jim

 

[tgibson]

Hi Jim,

I've never gotten that to work. Is there a trick? This is what I've tried:

Say I have a double sided sign.

1. I add a UVW Map to the object
2. I add a UVW Unwrap.
3. I press the Edit button and adjust the mapping so it covers the sign.

On the back side the lettering is backward, so:
4. I choose Select Face from the UVW Unwrap
5. I select the faces that are backwards
6. I press the Edit button and press the triangle so it turns red.
7. I click the flip horizontal button.

When I do this, both sides of the sign get flipped, instead of just the selected side. How can I affect only the selected side?

Thanks,

 

[JRobinson]

Hi Tom, If the UVWs were already selected prior to hiding the unselected polygons (with the red triangle), hiding them will not unselect them so when you flip them (or move, scale,etc) you'll still be affecting all selected UVWs whether they are visible or not. What I usually do is click off to the side somewhere to deselect all before I click the triangle, then when only the selected UVWs are showing, draw a rectangle around whatever's left in view which this time will select only the UVWs you're trying to work with. You can then click the triangle again to unhide all and confirm that only the UVWs you want are selected.

That's always worked for me anyway, does that sound like it might be what's happening in your case?

Jim

 

[Ztimbre]

Maybe I'm missing something as I've only built a few hundred models so far, but if you also apply a UVW unwrap to the entire box, can you not expand the modifier and choose "select face", then in the UVW editor click the little red triangle to hide unselected UVWs and move the selected face wherever you want? That's the way I've always done it anyway...

Jim

Yes, that is just what I was trying to explain with my 'simplify' comment at the bottom of my post.

When a "cube" (box) is created, each face already has a Material ID assigned automatically...

Well, cool, now I have learned something today. Unfortunately, for me, I think the default IDs would still be a nuisance, since I normally only want two IDs per object... one for the roof and one for everything else... but that is more geared toward scenery and laying out buildings to make the best use of a texture sheet.

 

[Ztimbre]

So, here's a question that I hope is still on topic and will continue this good discussion...

Has anyone experienced detrimental effects when using a 'box' uvwmap, where the uvwmap dimensions are much bigger than the actual object. Here's why: I am working on the buildings at my airport that are far from the flight line and, thus, won't receive much close viewing.

In order to speed up my painting process, I am considering using the same size uvwmap on all of the objects. This means that, on the texture sheet, all objects will be in proportion to each other, and I won't have to recalculate the size of texture elements such as doors and windows. I can copy and paste the door in the texture and know that it will always be 83" tall in the sim. The drawback is that one object may be 300' x 300' and others may be only 10' by 10'. I'm worried about putting a 300' by 300' uvwmap on a 10 by 10 object.

Thought??

p.s. - I've tested it a little, and haven't seen any problems, yet. I'm thinking that the texture LOD calculation is the big question mark...

 

[bob5568]

tom, the trick is to click planar map for the backside face. That breaks the bond to the front face.

 

[JRobinson]

Has anyone experienced detrimental effects when using a 'box' uvwmap, where the uvwmap dimensions are much bigger than the actual object.

I hope not because that's the way I do most of mine too . I usually figure out how many px per foot my texture sheet is, like you say using a 7' door or something and then calculate how many feet 1024px works out to. That figure then becomes the size of the UVW map in all 3 directions for anything I use that texture sheet on. Sometimes it does look a little odd seeing that huge UVW map cube on a tiny little object but you wind up with essentially the same thing if you use a UVW map that fits the object and then scale the bejeezus out of the UVWs in the UVW editor as near as I know.

On high-res texturing jobs where you need multiple sheets that can't tile, I often detach wall sections and texture them separately using "planar" instead of "box", then I'll use the gizmo to move, rotate, etc the UVW map until the texture is aligned where I want it on the wall. I don't even bother with UVW unwrap in that case most times.

Jim

 

[hcornea]

The box map is applied at the size you specify in the parameters

BUT

if you have applied a transformation (eg Scale transform) to your object, then the Map Modifier will be applied to the "untransformed" object size.

It is likely that explains what you are describing.