Distorted texture in 3dsmax7

[manu7777]

Hi,

I have a little with 3dsmax7 and skinning :

I want to create a shoulder protection named sode on a samurai armor. So i create a box divided in 3 sections in length and 5 sections in width. I resize my box and i apply the samurai texture to this box. Then, i add the Unwrap UVW Modifier and apply box mapping in the normal mapping menu like that :



So it gives the following render :



Then, i link the sode to the arm bone, export the model with cas exporter and close 3dsmax. Then i reopen 3dsmax and import the model and zoom on the sode it gives the following render :



The texture is completly distorted ! How must i do to keep the texture well-placed on the sode like in the first result and fix the problem?

Sincerely.

Manu

[manu7777]

Any idea ? :hmmm:

[Dirty Peasant]

You must break verticles before exporting the model.Go into vertex edit mode,select them (all if needed) and press "break" button.

[Caius Britannicus]

Dirty Peasant is correct. Whats happening is you have told a single vertex to be in two places at once with the UVW. You can always spot this when you select a vertex and another one turns blue. When you export this the vertex joins back together and your texture gets all warped. So there is a couple of things you can do. The first being DP's suggestion of breaking the vertex into two so you can have one in each spot. The second would be to re-arrange the UVW layout so the all the split vertices are together. This last one takes more work and you also have to re-arrange your texture. However the break method also has its own issues. In the BI engine the lighting is different from RTW. If you have broken vertices you form a seem and you get a dark and light side to the object. You can see that in this picture:

[manu7777]

THANK YOU very much DP and CB. Now it works fine ! Do you think it'll be a lighting problem with rt w 1.5 ?

[Caius Britannicus]

THANK YOU very much DP and CB. Now it works fine ! Do you think it'll be a lighting problem with rt w 1.5 ?

The lighting problem would exsist in 1.5. However the shape you created really wouldn't be affected. I brought it up just as a warning, in case you started making more elaborate models.

[Trajan]

Moved to Skins, Objects and Animations.

[Wundai]

Hello All,

I'm sorry for reviving this old thread, but I'm a little desperate in search for an answer.

I also have a problem with my texture, but in this case its not a unit but a building and its texture:


On the left you see the building after being imported into 3dsmax(8), and on the right you see the building before being cassed. I have tried breaking vertices but unfortunatly it doesn't seem to work, and re-arranging this building is like re-texturing the whole thing, and I hope I won't have to do that except if its absolutely necessary

So therefore I ask, does anyone know what I could be doing wrong?
- There are no errors when cassing the building
- Breaking vertices doesn't seem to work
- Edit mesh is on the objects before the building is cassed

If anyone could help me out I would really appreciate it

[oscarreeve]

Ok, not entirly sure but make sure u have selected everything when u add the texture. and press f9.

But my guesses are that the the problem is in the uv map .

But again i am not entirly sure.

[hocca]

To Wundai

First i'd collapse/convert the model to an editable mesh (if it isn't already).
Then i'd use the polygon sub object mode to select and detach to element each area that requires its own continuous section of the texture.
After that i'd change to element sub object mode, select the element that i'd just detached, and apply the texture map from the materials browser and then apply the UVW map modifier.
Finally i'd collapse/convert to editable mesh again and switch to element selection mode and reselect the same element that i'd just applied the UVW map to. I'd apply the unwrap UVW modifier and, after positioning the vertices, i'd collapse/convert to editable mesh once again.
Rinse and repeat for each continuous section of the texture.

I wouldn't use the break vertex funtion as it seems to break along all the attached edges. I've never used it for rtw modding. You don't want every polygon to be unattached, just separated as elements into each section of the texture, but, then again, i've never modded a building, only units, so it could be a completely different ball game. I've also never used the edit mesh modifier, just always collapse/convert to editable mesh so that might be giving you problems as well. I'd be interested in looking at the cas model if you are still having problems.

[Wundai]

To Oscarreeve:

Well mate you just told me how to make a render of my building with F9
Truth is I have not had this problem in my other buildings so I don't really think its the UV map, furthermore you can also see that some textures do work after being cassed and other don't.

To Hocca:

I will try your method mate, but it does sound a bit complicated,
oh btw my building already exists out of several objects

From what I understand this is you method:

- You have a model
- You use Edit mesh
- You apply the texture with map editor
- You apply UVW Map Modifier
- You make it editable mesh again
- You use Unwrap UVW
- You get the vertices right
- Then you use Editable mesh for the third time

Well with my other buildings I used this method which seems to work on them, but not on this particular one:

- I have a model
- I make it Editable Mesh
- I apply the texture with map editor
- I apply Unwrap UVW
- Get the Vertices right
- Then I cas the building

Seems simpler, although I must admit I have never made a unit before
nevertheless I will try it.
As for sending the cas, I'm sorry but I'm not allowed to do it,due to the chance of the building being stolen, that has nothing to do with you Hocca but our mod has had some bad experiences with stealing in the past.

[hocca]

Is each separate area of texture a completely separate object?
Or do some objects have more than one texture area?

For example, say you have a long box representing a wooden beam of a building and along all of the longer sides you have a wood grain texture from one area of your texture map. At both the ends you have an endgrain texture from another part of your texture map. With your modelling technique would you have the long sides as one complete separate object and the ends as another? Or would you apply the texture map to the single whole object and adjust the Unwrapped UVWs?

The second way will look OK in max but mess up on export to cas. Each vertex can only be assigned to one continuous area of texture. It's a limitation of the cas format I guess.

It seems like some of the planes of the roof are not separate objects, but a single object with the same part of the texture map reapplied.

[Wundai]

Well that is also a problem yes, when I apply seperate textures to one object, say: your example of the woodgrain texture.
Then after cassing those 2 link themselves up again, and it gets distorted this is true.
But i'm not sure this is the case with my texture, on the picture A and B are 2 seperate objects

All of the distorted textures on the picture have 1 texture for the Whole object.

But there is something different with these buildings compared to others I have made.
These buildings have 3D objects while the others had 2D Objects, that means that the texture that is Applied on the object you see ( for example the upper side of the roof) is ALSO applied to the side you do not see ( the down-side of the roof) Therefore a texture is applied on more sides than one.

Could this be what you mean Hocca?
That I should choose a different texture for each SIDE my object has?

[hocca]

Yes, you should detach the separate areas of texture into separate objects (or elements) by selecting the faces that have that texture and hitting the detach button.

Then apply texture, uvw map and unwrap uvw to each object (or element), And finally "collapse all" by right clicking on the modifier stack.

Separate areas of textures must be separate objects (or elements), even if they use the same actual bitmap. If a single vertex connects two (or more) different areas of texture it will cause the distortion. I'm not sure but i think detaching in the unwrap uvw doesn't actually detach the vertices at a modeling level, only a skinning level. Max can understand this and display it correctly but the cas format and rtw can't.

I'm not an expert in this area, I've just run into the same effect before and it frustrated me for a while. This is how I solved it after very carefully rereading Hoggy's awesome tute about unit modeling and skinning over at the org.

edit:

I would suggest that you add the uvw map modifier to your texturing process.

Use the planar map and orient it to the angle that best fits. If you use cylinder or box, etc it will also cause the problems you are having. If you also let max generate the texture coordinates for you when you create the initial primitive that could also cause the problem. The problem so caused is also about single vertices being at two points on the texture map at the same time. For example if you apply a cube map, the vertices at the seam of the texture as it wraps around the cube are actually at two points on the texture map.

Ps: it is very irritating how quickly I am logged out while writing posts. Guess I'll have to write less.

[Wundai]

Will test this as soon as I'm able

[Wundai]

YES, I finally got around to testing it, and Hocca Thank You for all your help, it worked, I hoped to have found a solution where I didn't have to reskin my entire building(s) because the distortion is present on alot of objects.
But I think there is none now, your solution is the best, thank you again