Texturing frustrations

[Guest iholrf]

There are times when I swear I am going to go postal if Gmax doesn't start doing what I want and stop crashing. Do I sound a little frustrated?.All I want to do is texture a stupid little box. One tiny little strip along the bottom of my panel. Just a little extension to make the panel a tad higher. You think I can manage this?No*Sigh*I select my box. I hide everything else. I click material navigator. I select an existing map that I want to grab a sliver from the bottom for the texture. No problem. Drag and drop onto part. Cool. Whole map is on part. Select "crop" in the "crop or place" button and drag the window down to the right size (I want the whole width). Fine. Click view in view port on the editor. Up pops the texture looking all fine and dandy.Select UVW Map from the modifier stack and nothing seems to need adjustment.Export it. Fine. Look at results and I am getting A) the whole map on the part not the sliver I cropped to and :( it is showing the map as it looks in the working png, not taken from the maps in the texture folder in the AC container.Try making a new map... gmax crashes... try making a new map, carefully delete just the "a" in the name "Map#0" and type my new name, then delete the rest... whew, no crash... go through the process of cropping etc and the result?Same.Retry again (crash and crash and crash) in every possible permutation and ultimately the results all end up looking the same.I have read and re-read the tutorials over and over, but they seem to be written for a different version of Gmax and not all of the dialogues look the same or have the same labels. What am I doing wrong?I must say, I am not enjoying modeling so far. I seem have no talent or intuition for it. It is a necessary evil if I want to accomplish my goals, but this is almost more pain than its worth. My hat is off to you GMAX gurus. You must have boundless tolerance for frustration.CheersShad

[Guest VulcanB2]

WOW! :-eekIt reads "frustrated"!!! OK..... with my limited knowledge of texturing boxes (this is all I used to do until recently), try the following:* Select the FACE of the object that you want to texture* With the face selected, go to the gMax Material Editor (Where did it crash on you BTW?)* Carefully select ;) "New Material"* Select Single Material* Open your existing texture with the silver line* Do what you do to get it selected etc in the material editor and applied to the face* Exit the Material Editor* In the roll-out, select Unwrap UVW* Select the area you want **if it fails in FS, see below for what to do after this point in the process to try idea 2*** Apply it* Save and export your model.****** if the step above didn't work:* Select the area you want but inset by 1px so you are not on the edge of the texture (there is 1px of texture between the selection box and the texture file edge)* Apply it* Save and export your model.Hope that works without crashing! :)Best regards,Vulcan.

[Guest iholrf]

Heheh, this is making me old before my time, but for some reason I persist.I will try it as you described. I have managed to get the part textured using an entire 1024x1024 sheet! *Chuckle* That created its own unique set of problems (doing it this way resulted in it grabing the part from the bottom... needless to say I had streched a 56 pixel high image to 1024 to accomodate the squishing and now I had 56 pixles of a 1024 image being painted onto the part...Instead of saying "hmm what did I do" I said "dang it, you will do what I want" and proceded to fiddle until it was right.The only problem is I have no idea how to do it again because I had already tried so many variations I was completely dazed and confused and was pretty much clicking things randomly. LOL :DHere we go again.Thanks VulcanShad

[n4gix 4,947]

Shad, you are really making things hard on yourself.There are plethora ways to apply textures to gmax objects, some of which are actually quite easy.Many of the "tutorials" that are available were written using the first version of GMax that came with FS2k2. The major change in the upgrade was the Material Editor, so quite naturally those older tutorials have different menus, buttons, etc.First of all, "dragging" is not a particularly good way to apply textures, as all sorts of strange things might happen. There is a button in the Material Editor labeled "Apply." That is a more solid and predictable method to use.Second, always apply a UVW Map before applying texture.In order then:1) Select part, select polygons to texture2) Add UVW Map to stack, size UVW Map to first even number in both X & Y dimensions that covers the entire part's polygons3) Open Material Editor and create New Material, or load existing Material from the Material Library (double-click to send to Mat Editor)4) Click Apply5) Add a UVW Unwrap to the stack6) Click Edit button7) "Lasso" all vertices in the UVW Editor's window, then use Move, Scale, Rotate tools as needed to fit the UVW vertices to your texture.8) Export .mdl and test9) When happy with results, right click on any Viewport and "Convert to Mesh (or Poly) as desired.Use this pattern for (most) of your mapping/texturing needs. It can be done quicker than it took me to type this... ;)

[Guest iholrf]

Story of my life. ;)As mentioned, I seem to have no intuition for it. I think part of the problem is I am coming at this whole thing backwards. However, I will prevail, I will not be beaten by a triangle!CheersShad(When done collecting all these tips I should compile them into a complete guide for ham fisted no talent hacks like myself. It should be very comprehensive as you guys have walked me through virtually every step of this process heheh).

[Guest VulcanB2]

Hi Bill,Thanks - the UVW Map was eluding me.EDIT: Shad - look out for the scenery tutorial - this covers texturing. They are texturing a house, but it is the same principle for aircraft pretty much.On my system it is located here: C:gmaxgamepacksfs2004docsbut if you look for the gmax folder then the path above, the "gmaxSceneryTutorial" (I found) was very useful. If you follow it carefully, you shouldn't have any problems texturing what you want.Best regards,Vulcan.

[n4gix 4,947]

>Hi Bill,>>Thanks - the UVW Map was eluding me.Some "tutorials" (particularly the earlier ones) will instruct you to use the UVW Map's "Gizmo" to slide the UVW Map's bounding box around to shift the mapped mesh vertices around on the texture template's area.Frankly, that's a very clumsy and innaccurate method, since you cannot SEE what you are doing! ;(By adding the UVW Unwrap modifier to the stack, and then opening the Editor, you are able to then "lasso" the mesh vertices and visually move/size/rotate them to fit the texture sheet...

[Guest iholrf]

*Throws back head and cackles in insane glee*... that was almost better than a lunchtime quickie.You DO realize you just opened Pandora's Box for me, eh? :DOh my, my my my my my.... what a wonderful tool you have shown me, Bill. Oh dear, I am SO done for. Sophie is going to divorce me. You see while texturing was a big mystery I was somewhat limited in my dreams... now.. now... heheheheheh *rubs hands together*.(I have always wanted to fly a Klingon Bird of Prey.....)CheersShad

[Guest iholrf]

>Hi Bill,>>Thanks - the UVW Map was eluding me.>>EDIT: Shad - look out for the scenery tutorial - this covers>texturing. They are texturing a house, but it is the same>principle for aircraft pretty much.>>On my system it is located here:>C:gmaxgamepacksfs2004docs>but if you look for the gmax folder then the path above, the>"gmaxSceneryTutorial" (I found) was very useful. If you follow>it carefully, you shouldn't have any problems texturing what>you want.>>Best regards,>Vulcan.Yah know, I had read that doc way back when I first started thinking I might want to do something for the sim. You are right, its a good resource. Thanks for reminding me.CheersShad

[n4gix 4,947]

"Pandora's Box?" Perhaps so, Shad, perhaps... Have fun! ;)

[Guest iholrf]

Heh, you caused me to wonder if I had used the right metaphor(?). I had to go check. :-eekPerhaps what I should have said was "open it a second time to find hope". :)CheersShad