Greetings...I need some advice on how to Gmax texture a curved roadway.I created a semi-scale, curved bridge, with varying heights, which crosses the Columbia river here in Portland, Oregon starting at 60' then rising to 100' then back down to 60' across Government Island then climbing to 175' where it joins the Washington side of the Columbia river.I created and extruded this model in AutoCad2002 in about 10 minutes, exported it via the 3DSOUT command into Gmax and textured the Bridge and Footings with concrete and the Light poles in a flat white color using no textures. The resulting bgl inserts perfectly into FS9 and being Gmax has literally no perceptible hit in Frame degradation...My problem is 2 fold... I have tried over and over to add various Roadway textures and they start out fine until I either begin to climb or turn within the roadway... Then my roadway pattern twists or distorts within Gmax... I've tried to texture just selected polygons which align the roadway fine but when I select additional polygons and start to rotate the textures to align for the new curve or height change it rotates the previous polygon texture also... I can't seem to separate my polygon textures so rotating one doesn't effect the others... I'm not even sure this is how I should be approaching the texturing of this curved and height changing roadway.My second problem is that I've tried to light just a few of the poles at one end of the bridge just to see if it works. I've tried every one of the 4 light types Gmax offers and adjusted their light patterns to what I think looks proper but I get no lights in FS9. I've set my makemdl output to include lightmap but I still get no lights at nite...Any suggestions would be much appreciated... http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/61926.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/61927.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/61928.jpg

>My problem is 2 fold... I have tried over and over to add>various Roadway textures and they start out fine until I>either begin to climb or turn within the roadway... Then my>roadway pattern twists or distorts within Gmax... I've tried>to texture just selected polygons which align the roadway fine>but when I select additional polygons and start to rotate the>textures to align for the new curve or height change it>rotates the previous polygon texture also... I can't seem to>separate my polygon textures so rotating one doesn't effect>the others... I'm not even sure this is how I should be>approaching the texturing of this curved and height changing>roadway.I can't really help here. At the places where the bridges has a bend, do you have multiple smaller polyons there? In that case it should be possible to map correctly.>My second problem is that I've tried to light just a few of>the poles at one end of the bridge just to see if it works. >I've tried every one of the 4 light types Gmax offers and>adjusted their light patterns to what I think looks proper but>I get no lights in FS9. I've set my makemdl output to include>lightmap but I still get no lights at nite...Looking from your screenshots you are using the light objects of GMax, that will not work. MakeMDL does not work with them. If you read the Fs2002 MakeMDL SDK you will find some material names you can use to get lights. But these lights will never shine on your bridge, they will light the ground/water below. So probably your best option to get night lighting it using a night texture.

Thanks Arno... I hadn't read anywhere that Gmax lighting would not work but it makes sense... I still need to deal with the proper way to texture the roadway... The concrete and lights texture appear just fine but laying a highway texture across this thing has not been as easy as I thought it would be...

Bnick,I'd be happy to lend a hand if you're still stuck. I'm so happy to see someone working on this bridge! As a VFR flyer based in Portland, I really want those bridges put back right! I was going to try it myself, but you've got a great looking start on it. Let me know if I can help. I've done quite a bit of Gmax texturing, so I might have some insights.thanks,

As far as your texture problem goes, it sounds like you are trying to apply a material to the whole object in one go, but to get a perfect fit you need to planar map the material to each face of the object. If you have already tried or know how to do this then please ignore the following.Your road surface object needs to be made with as few segments as possible i.e. just enough to achieve a smooth bend. Apply the texture (diffuse bitmap) to the object. Then planar map each road surface face of the object (in the modifiers list use UVW map, then unwrap UVW, then expand unwrap UVW (hit the + sign) and highlight "select face"). Select each face in turn by clicking on it, and for each face selected hit the "planar map" button (bottom of the "parameters" menu. Once done, highlight each face in turn using the "named selection sets" drop down list (in the top right of the main toolbar), and hit the "edit" button in the parameters menu to bring up the material editor. "Filter the selected faces" using the button in the editor then move the face points to the correct spots in your texture. Use all of the move, rotate and resize buttons to help here.This is pretty painstaking work, but you can get a perfect match of texture to roadway. Also, your texture only needs to be for a small section of roadway, not for the whole bridge.Hope this helps

Bill, Scott and you too Arno... Thanks so much for the advice...I will try what you suggested Scott..You know I work on complicated business Servers most every day but from the looks of your instructions I think MS Server Certification was easier... ha.I am getting fairly comfortable in the Modifier Lists, UV Mapping area, from the Tutorials which I've been studying, hit and miss lately, since I want to create FS Scenery and not Quake Monsters... not that I didn't have fun with Quake Monsters years ago... actually I think I dated a few of them in Highschool...I set my bridge footings and lights as "Cylindrical" and the bridge and roadway gizmo's as "box"... and I mapped my road texture to a few polygons at the beginning of the bridge when my problems began, but that was then, I'll try your instructions.Bill twould be nice to get together with you so I can update you on a new KPDX Scenery package that a friend down in Texas and I have been working on and are close to releasing as freeware...The KPDX airbase is beautiful with all the static F15's and Every building around the Airport property is very accurately represented so far... I think you'll really enjoy this Scenery...FPS are still pretty good, anywhere from 12 to 20 which I'm locked at, no Memory leaks even with Eddie Dennie's Oregon Mesh Terrain... I'm really loving the AutoCad2002/Gmax 3D model extrusion capabilities... I drew and extruded the entire Airport-Way from KPDX to 181st and the I205 Interchange on either side of the bridge from close to I5 South to Clackamas in about 5 minutes and there is, from what I can see, no FPS hits at all... The Gmax models seem to really be, as we've read, FPS friendly, it just seem you have to have a Doctorate to texture them...Like others have written, it may not have ever been intended for FS Scenery but wow do I see the potential. I've been doing advanced 3D modeling since 1988 and this little Autodesk Gmax product is definitely cool as long as your a genius and that probably answers why I shouldn't be using it...ha.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/62147.jpg