This is a very basic tutorial designed for those wishing to just 'apply an image' to an object in 3dsMax.
Regards.
MrTom.
The Objective: To apply an image to an object.
The Material:
Here you can see a basic material coloured by using the 'Diffuse' slot.
There are many ways to apply colour to a material, this is the easiest. Just click the 'Diffuse' colour slot and choose a colour, thats it.
The rest of the settings above relate to VRay but the process of applying maps to objects is a Max procedure and is not renderer dependant, therefore this will work with whichever renderer you prefer to use.
The Map Slot:
The 'Map' slot is the little grey square next to the 'Diffuse' colour slot. These 'Map' slots come in all shapes and sizes but are essentially the same.
Clicking on the grey square opens up the Material/Map browser, where you can specify what type of Map you wish to use.
For this tutorial a 'Mask' Map is going to be used, simply because it gives us more flexibility, this Map itself has 2 Maps within it, one is a 'Bitmap' Map the other is a 'Mask' Map.
The 'Diffuse' Map:
Here you can see that the 'Diffuse' Map (circled) is a 'Mask' Map (right hand side), and is split into two different Maps.
The 'Map' is the bitmap image we want to apply to the object.
The 'Mask' is a Black and White version of the 'Map' image above used to HIDE (or MASK) parts of the 'Map'. Note the handy 'Invert Mask' checkbox....just in case you get your Black and White mixed up!
The large 'None' button is just another Map slot, only long, thin and has the word 'None' written on it.
Clicking this will open the same Material/Map browser window as before, NOW choose 'Bitmap' as the Map to use.
The 'Bitmap' Map:
You will then be able to choose the Image you want to apply to the object.....in this example it is a simple #1, in Black, on a White background.
This could be ANY image you wish to use. A nice feature is to be able to use layered Adobe Photoshop 'psd' files. Should you use one of these you will be able to choose either a merged layer, or individual layers, the latter giving you the option to use just one layer of the whole image......nice touch!
To explain why we used a 'Mask' map a little more the image in this example involves 'text'. We could have used this on its own and simply put it in the 'Diffuse' Map slot as a 'Bitmap' but in so doing we effectively disable the initial 'Diffuse' colour slot. Using the Image in this way would result in a WHITE object with a BLACK #1 on it, the WHITE coming from the background colour of the Image. In this case, changing the 'Diffuse' colour will have NO effect whatsoever.
What if we want a different colour background? The 'Diffuse' colour has no effect so how do we do it? Well, you could create a whole new Image with a different background colour, but to cater for ALL colours would be very time consuming if not totally impossible.
By using a 'Mask' though, we can use the same Image but Mask the background part, this will allow the initial 'Diffuse' colour to show through and have full effect in the render. So if we want a Red backround we can use the 'Diffuse' colour slot as normal and choose a Red colour, the #1 will remain BLACK as this is from the Image.
Before moving on to the 'Mask' lets finish with the 'Map'. Once you have selected the Image you want to use your Material Editor will display the options associated with the 'Map':
So, from the top:
The Material now displays the image in the editor.
We are looking at the 'Map' section of the 'Mask Map'....left.....
......which is itself a 'Bitmap'....right.
The Map Channel is a way of 'labelling' each map so that later when we use UVW it will know which map to apply the settings to.
'Tiling' allows us to literally 'tile' the image several times. In this example we only require ONE instance of the image on each face of the object (the cube), so the default values of 1 are fine. Unchecking the 'Tiling' boxes has the same effect, ie, just use ONE instance of the image.
I've circled the greyed out area just as a point of interest. If you do uncheck the 'Tiling' boxes then this option becomes available. Unchecking it will stop the image being rendererd on any opposing faces, although the viewport will still display the map on those faces.
When finished here you can click on the large black arrow to return to the 'Diffuse' Map dialog, ready to select the 'Mask'.
The 'Mask' Map:
This is the Black and White 'Mask' Image associated with the 'Bitmap' Image used above. No matter what colours were used in the 'Bitmap' Image, this will be the Mask. When using a Mask like this the background colour becomes irrelevant, as when masked you wont see it anyway, and the background colour will come from the 'Diffuse' colour slot as mentioned earlier.
This is basically how a Mask works, anything BLACK will hide those parts of the 'Bitmap' Map, anything in WHITE will allow the 'Bitmap' Map to be seen. Any scale of grey can also be used in Maps to specify the degree of how much a 'Bitmap' map can be seen. It can be seen from this simple premise that Maps of any description can get very complex in terms of detail, although the same rules apply.....BLACK=HIDDEN, WHITE=VISIBLE, GREY=ANYWHERE INBETWEEN.
Once you have selected your 'Mask' Image you will return to the Material Editor with the 'Mask' properties dialog displayed, just as it did for the 'Bitmap' Image.
Again you can see that the Material reflects the 'Mask' Image used, although this may not be as apparent as before.
This time we are looking at the 'Mask' section of the 'Mask' Map.....left.......
....which again is itself a 'Bitmap' Image....right.
The Map Channel should be the same for both the 'Bitmap' and the 'Mask' Images. The default value is 1 and is fine.
Note: It is not imperative that the two Map Channels be the same. It is possible to apply seperate UVW mapping to each Image, but as we only need one UVW map in this example we can use the same map for both. This only works if the two images are of identicle sizes and the mask aligns perfectly.
The Result:
Nearly there........the Material now has the Image applied, all we have to do now is tell it where on the object we want it. We do this by adding a UVW Map modifier to the stack:
This will tell the Image where to be on the surface of the object. Once in the stack it is always a good idea to name each UVW Map, as many Maps could be applied to the same object.
The UVW Map:
Once a UVW Map modifier is added to the stack, the Command Panel reflects the options available to it. By default the Mapping is set to Planar, but it should be obvious that the object we have is not Planar but is in fact a 'Box'.
It is also here that you select the 'Map Channel' which corresponds to that which you set in the Material Editor. Again the default is 1. If you had assigned different Map Channels to the 'Bitmap' and the 'Mask' then you would apply another UVW Map and assign the Map Channel as 2....etc. ..etc.
Switching to 'Box' Mapping gives this result:
As you can see the Material now fits perfectly. By clicking the '+' sign next to the UVW Map modifier in the stack you can gain access to the Mapping Gizmo. You can move, rotate and scale the Gizmo if you need to. Experimenting with this is the best way to appreciate what you can do with it.
That's about it. There is obviously a lot more you can do with Maps and UVW's but hopefully this will get you off to a good start.
The Render:
MrTom.
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