h00ver Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 (edited) Hey everyone, I finished modeling a custom weapon to put in New Vegas, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to map and unwrap the textures in 3ds Max. Would anyone be interested in mapping the textures and/or painting them? I will send you the nif and a few pictures of what I want it to look like ( i built the model in solidworks, then rendered it in the same program, but when converting to .nif the textures were lost). Any help will be greatly appreciated, and you will receive credit. Even just applying the uvw map and unwrapping it would be a huge help. If no one is interested, can anyone point me to a good tutorial on texturing weapons? The only ones I have found have been using the pelt feature and that didn't work well at all for my model. Thanks,h00ver Edited November 19, 2012 by h00ver Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrickyVein Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 (edited) Learning how to use the 'unwrap UV' modifier is pretty much required if you're serious about modeling. It's actually pretty easy to use when you start working with it. For complex geometry, you're going to want to break the UV map into pieces by creating seams across the faces of your model in order to minimize distortion of faces. The pelt tool is meant to be used in combination with defining seam edges. At the bottom of the dialogue for the unwrap UV modifier tab you'll see something called 'edit seams' or 'turn edges to seams' or something to that effect. By clicking on 'edit seams' and with edge-selection on, click and define a seam where you want to break up the faces of your model. You may then apply the pelt modifier to as many different pieces of your model as you wish. Once you've created a decent UV map for your model, you can export it from within the modifier window as well. Actually creating the texture requires skillz and you're not going to find a 'tutorial' per se, only individual's preferred methods for texture creation. Edited November 20, 2012 by TrickyVein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h00ver Posted November 20, 2012 Author Share Posted November 20, 2012 Yea I figured actually painting the texture was more of an art thing. Thank you though for explaining the unwrapping to me. The dialogue box just has so many options for someone who has never used 3ds for anything more than removing bits and pieces of already made weapons and armor. I mainly just wanted to make this one weapon because I was tired of trying to combine others to make exactly what Im looking for haha. I appreciate the help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrickyVein Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 3DS max comes with really excellent documentation, and creating UV maps for custom models is definitely tricky. It is also time-consuming, no matter what your approach. Without defining seams, you may also wish to select only those faces you wish to work on atm and apply a planar projection or something equivalent to them; with them selected in the UV editor window, applying 'relax' will usually give good results and minimize stretching. After using 'pelt' it is also usually a good idea to use the relax tool anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donta1979 Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 If you model you need to learn to uv man. Best thing to do is start reading tutorials, learning the UV tools, and if need be map your model in sections. UVing is a pain to learn at first but once your good at it, first you will learn how to lay out then you will learn to lay out for texturing easier, then layout, and texture for a model without texture seams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts