Applying Textures to Model

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Can anybody give me a short lowdown on how to apply new textures to a model? I don't mean just overriding  already present textures, but actually applying tga's in any way I want to a model's surface.

I figure it is done through a model editor, so, is there a 3DS Max tutorial on this particular?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               My method in 3dsMax or gmax is to simply drag and drop the texture file itself from a folder in Windows onto the object in the 3ds/gmax window. There are more complex ways of going about it, but for the purposes of NWN that's fine.

Alternatively, if you open up a .mdl file in Notepad or another text editor and look for lines saying, for example, bitmap thisoldtexture, you can set that to another texture name by changing the second part of the line (ie bitmap mynewtexture. Don't include file extensions like .tga in the texture name. The bitmap property appears once for every 3d object in the model file, and these may use the same texture repeatedly or many different texture names. If an object hasn't been given a texture, its texture name will appear to as NULL.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 10 avril 2011 - 03:36 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               Do a google search and you will find hundreds of them.

"3ds max uvw unwrap tutorials"

This is the first one, which is a BASIC version, done via youtube.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Ok, I knew about the text editor texture replacement method, and Six's input on dropping texture files from explorer directly into 3DS Max was a good tip, but I was wondering how you actually turn and move the texture to fit the model in any way you want?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               That is exactly what UVW Unwrapping is.  You place the texture on the object, then uvw unwrap and click the edit button.

That opens a new window where you can manually move the verts/faces of the object to exactly where you want them on the actual texture.

I am not trying to make it hard on you, but that is the only way to really do what you are asking.  I highly suggest watching a few of the videos that come up with that uvw unwrap search.

Using the unwrap/edit mode you can have a texture, say of a dragons skull that has been sliced down the middle and flattened out.  With the unwrap edit mode you can actually grabe the verts around the eye section of your skull object and move them (inside the edit window NOT on the actual object) and place them directly over the eye in the texture.

No one can tell you in a single or a couple steps how to do this, your best bet is to watch a few of those vids or grab a couple tutorials from the net.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Dude, why is it everything I ask in the forums turns out to be the most complicated thing? I mean, I consider myself a retard when it comes to NWN custom content, and mods, and ·$%!, so every time I post a thread, I'm expecting someone to tell me: -Hey, man, doing that's a piece of cake!- but I always get a -Huh? Are you mad? That's like... a highly complicated, difficult, insane thing!-

I mean, we get guys asking how to use the override folder all the time, or how to re-skin a tileset, and here I'm guessing my questions are just as simple as those, but every single time: Bam! You need a degree in neverwintian art and science to make this &%$· work!

Thanks for the tips and links bannor!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jedijax, 13 avril 2011 - 08:15 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               Sorry dude, it really is not all that hard to do, but you must already be familiar with 3ds/gmax to be able to do it.  If not, the learning curve is VERY steep.

I wish it was as simple as a 1-2 click.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               It is simple or else I couldn't do it '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Frith5]

               It's not all that bad. Just get gMax going, make a simple cube. Play around with getting a texture mapped to the sides of that cube. When you can do that, you are well on your way. Like anything else, it's open ended. One can certainly get started without too much trouble. But there is really no end to what can be done, so that means more and more learning is always on the horizon. I don't think it's a bad thing though. Just get started as simply as possible. You will naturally absorb things and grow from there.

JFK
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               What the %$$··"??!! This %$·" is the most %$·"!· up $%&"! I've ever tried for NWN!
2DA works? Pfa!... Texture editing and shading in PAINT.NET? Meh... Model tweaking? childsplay! But this?! This is the &%$·!"·$% Pope!!

Just so people as ignorant on this matter as I was up till today know what I mean, you can't "move" a texture over the &%$·"! model, no, cause that would be too humane, no... the software creators, in their infinite wisdom, decided it was best for you to "unwrap" a 3d model as a &%$·"! cardboard figure and lay it all in a unspeakably weird form so you can add an equally %$·"! up texture over it, and then pray everything got in place the way you expected!!

sniff sniff... I can't take this anymore... I mean, when did NWN become so difficult... I'm sorry, I'm just too emotional today...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jedijax, 14 avril 2011 - 05:33 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy__six]

               What exactly are you working with?

'cos if you're just putting on a plain material texture, rather than a detailed laid out one, you might want to investigate the UVW Mapping modifier. It's got a bunch of half-arsed cheating methods in it that I used to use almost exclusively. They won't work nearly as well as manually mapping, but they're an excellent way to get something that looks halfway decent without any manual manipulation - and a good starting place for manually mapping something.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 14 avril 2011 - 10:32 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               Well, I'm actually talking about the UVW Mapping modifier. I just wanted to "adjust" an already existing texture on the model, no fancy shmancy work, I guess, but a simple "aligning" of said texture.

You see how the 1.69 TNO buildings have a "bricked" ended texture in the corners (which is actually dubbed "corner")? Well, I wanted to use such in the ever-growing re-skin I have been doing for TTR, but, as usual, the texture needs to be aligned so the bricked-corner is actually in the corner of the buildings, and not placed in the middle or some such. Your drag and drop method is fine for placing and quick checking new textures over a model, you know, to see immediately if a texture is smeared or flipped, or whatever, something that is very slow and hard to check when modifying via text editors, so I can't fathom why you can't simply "grab" the already placed texture as you would a model, in order to adjust it over the model's face; it just would seem so obvious...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               Those corners typically are textures with an alpha layer so they can be applied to all kinds of walls. If they are 'mixed' with the wall texture you can just replace the name of the texture and move the t-verts so the corner is really at the corner of the building, but I advice against it. It would be better to use a texture with an alpha layer for the corner, use gmax to make some boxes in the corners of the building to which you apply the texture and then remove the sides of the boxes you don't need. The boxes have to be placed so that if the corner of a wall is at, let's say 300, 100, 0, the corner of the box has to be at 301, 101, 0, so you don't get any flickers.
With this method you only need one corner texture for all kinds of walls and you only have to apply the texture of the corner once. Once you got the first corner right you can clone and turn and move it to use it for the other corners.
As for moving the texture around, you can do that either by using the uvw xform modifier. It has an u and v offset which will move the texture in the u or v direction, or you can apply an unwrap uvw modifier, select all vertices and then move all of them. If you just need to change one side of a box for example, you can select all the faces of that side of the box and then apply the unwrap modifier and it will only affect those faces. It really isn't very hard to do.
Also if you got a texture right and need it for another object with the same geometry, you can save the uvw map and then apply an unwrap uvw modifierer to the second object and load the uvw map.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               Using the unwrap edit mode, in the upper section is a selection box, that defaults to a checkerboard pattern, but if you open that selection box, you get the actual texture assigned.

So, do that, select the real texture so it displays in the selection box.
Now your texture will display in the edit window.

There is another option to setup in the edit window, under options.


The default edit window works with verts.  Regardless, do a ctrl-a to select all verts, and you can then drag them all.  Drag them until the corner is where you want it. 

Depending on your screen size, and if the edit window is not overlapping your main display of the object, you can "see" the texture move on the object in the main display. 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 16 avril 2011 - 01:47 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy__six]

               

Well, I'm actually talking about the UVW Mapping modifier. I just wanted to "adjust" an already existing texture on the model, no fancy shmancy work, I guess, but a simple "aligning" of said texture.

Actually, if you just want to scroll a texture along, there's a UVW Xform modifier that has some very simple scrolling and scaling tools without having to mess with the UVW geometry yourself.

I'd reccomend Bannor's method though once you've got used to how it works. The UVW Xform is pretty much trial and error, where via the UVW Unwrap method you can drag the texture to where it needs to be at a glance.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 15 avril 2011 - 01:58 .