Gmax Cylindrical Mapping alignment

[Alan McGaughey]

Hi All,

Can anyone help with this... I'd like to rotate the texture mapping for the sides in order to align the colour blocks, but I'm not sure why Gmax begins to wrap the sides where it does, any help gratefully received, cheers.

 

[tgibson]

I'm not sure how you got them offset like that, but this should work.
Add an Edit Mesh or Edit Poly to the modifier stack on the right.
Click the little black + sign to the left of Edit Mesh/Edit Poly and choose Polygon.
Select the side polygons only.
Add a UVW Map modifier to the stack.
Click the Cylindrical button
Click the little black + sign to the left of UVW Mapping.
Click Gizmo
Use the Rotate mode to rotate the mapping around the sides of the cylinder. If the mapping is not aligned with the sides of the cylinder, you can use the Move, Rotate, and Scale modes to get it that way. The mapping should be just outside the sides of the cylinder and parallel with the sides.

Hope this helps,

 

[hairyspin]

There’s a full tutorial series in the Wiki which covers Gmax mapping in detail. Part 1 includes cylindrical mapping and orientation which should point you in the right direction.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=UVW_Mapping_in_Gmax

 

[BASys]

Hi Gents.

Many thanks for your replies.

Alan's very kindly creating these objects for me, as I'm not a modeller.

There's 14 off similarly mapped cylinder models,
each with sides and end caps,
where those colour-blocks are required to align.

As there's further models to create,
the idea was to make the process as simple as possible.

The model is a GMax cylinder primitive, (1 side high, no smoothing, no scaling).

The texture was applied using GMax's default cylinder mapping tool.

The selected areas for mapping of the texture are pixel perfect.

However,
having created several attempts from scratch, (12 and 24 sided),
each time the mapping of the sides
is always displaced from the origin axes,
by exactly one polygon.

e.g.
For a 24 sided cylinder, i.e. 15 degrees per side polygon.
For the top face -
Green == 0 to 90
Yellow == 90 to 180
Blue == 180 to 270
Red == 270 to 360 (0)

As you can see from Alan's screenie,
the sides unexpectedly map from 345 degrees,
rather than from the 0 degrees axis.

Is there a bug in GMax's default cylinder mapping tool ?

I've attached a 24 bit version of the texture (PNG as forum won't accept BMP).

Many thanks
ATB
Paul

 

[Deleted member 1281]

Once you subdivide the cylinder, as you seem to have done, you have to adjust the mapping.

For a 12-sided cylinder, gmax's 'generate mapping coordinates' supplies you with the 12 sides and a single circular mapping of the end caps (see pic). You can scale and move these elements to your heart's content, and alignment should not be difficult, without any need to further subdivide the object.

 

[BASys]

Hi Gents.

Just to clarify -
There was no separation/subdivision of anything whatever.

Actions -
Launched GMax.
Created the cylinder primtive.
Applied the texture exactly as Manfred outlined.

Result -
Side's mapping is offset by one polygon.

Anyone ?
Following the actions above,
do the side colour-blocks align with the axes for you ?

Much appreciated.
ATB
Paul

 

[bdf369]

Any chance of uploading a .gmax file? Are you cropping the image in the material settings? I get weird results on the caps rather than on the sides.
Seems much easier to use a stack of poly select/unwrap.

Edit: Attached is how I mapped it, using cylinder map and then unwrap. I had to rotate the cap vertices, I use angle snap when rotating for precision.

 

[hairyspin]

Select the mapping gizmo and rotate by the necessary angle. To get the gizmo, click on the UVW Mapping modifier to expand it and you’ll see it listed. Best to use the type-in box to specify the angle - a 12-sided cylinder will need the gizmo rotated by 360/12 = 30 degrees, for example.

Alternatively, as long as it’s not parented to anything else, just rotate the mapped cylinder to align correctly.

 

[BASys]

Hi Gents.

Many thanks for your assistance with this.

I've attached the basic model, (24 sided).
Beware it's very small, 86x30 mm.

You can use any sized cylinder though.

There was no cropping of the image.

We used GMax's 'generate mapping coordinates' as Manfred mentioned
Scaled and moved.
Aligned the top first, using single circular mapping of the end cap.
Flipped to match.

Much appreciated.
ATB
Paul

 

[Deleted member 1281]

Well, it seems you have to rearrange/move the sections as described above. Many ways to skin a cat. Below I used a subdivision/mesh select/unwrap process. Works with a very simple texture sheet, but I don't actually know if that's all that's needed ... your own texture sheet suggests it may have to be more complex.

 

[Alan McGaughey]

Hi Folks,

Thanks for all your replies, experiments and advice, I believe I've solved the issue now...

When I created the cylinder and converted to an editable poly, I then added UVW Mapping (Cylindrical with cap checked) and then added UVW Unwrap in order to edit the mapping, no matter what I did the mapping for the sides was always offset on the texture sheet in the mapping editor by one polygon... After consulting the tutorial in the wiki it turns out I don't need to add the cylindrical UVW Mapping, I just needed to add UVW Unwrap to the editable poly, then scale and flip/rotate the maps to suit... the sides then align as expected without the offset. So it would seem that my over-complication of the mapping is what caused the offset issue.

Once again thanks for all your assistance, much appreciated.

 

[BASys]

Hi Everyone.

Glad you've got it sorted Alan.

My apologies to you all for taking up your time,
and many thanks for your help and suggestions.

Given GMax's widespread & historical use,
I'd believed the creation and mapping task
should be a relatively simple, & easily repeatable process,
hopefully without involving separating surfaces, rotations,
and especially avoiding re-mangling the texture set.

Further appreciate all your perseverance with this modeling malarkey.
Me - I'll stick to Excel data-mangling, thanks.


Manfred -
re: texture sheet complexity

The uploaded sheet was just the alignment layer,
for ensuring that the cylinder's various sectors were mapped appropriately.

The texture proper, currently covers -
- 5 different model type lights,
- forked out to 14 variants, (different sizes/colours/tops/sectors).

The idea being to map one, then save as A.
Vertically reposition/rescale mapping, then save as B.
etc. etc.

These models are to replace effect based lights,
which due to their numbers, (338 off per helideck/vessel),
were inhibiting other more critical effects
from running/displaying correctly.


Thanks again Gents.

ATB
Paul

 

[Deleted member 1281]

Excellent, glad you got it sorted!