Gmax: Material not showing up in viewport

[Zacker]

I can't get my materials to show up in the viewport in Gmax. The "show in viewport" thingy has been enabled and the material has been applied to the object.

[patriot]

Does the mesh that you applied it to have UV cordinates?

If you don't want to unwrap the UV's your self try to use one of the options in the "UVW Map" modifier, cylinder mapping most likely since it's a cylinder

[Zacker]

Yay thx, that worked! Applying an UVW map modifer made the material show up:)

It does however still not look very nice as it is somewhat pixelated and some places it is just over-stretched:/

[Farles]

If you dont have a UVW map, all the coordinates are at 0,0,0, which means at the same place and that's why its all white.

[patriot]

Yepp the UVW Map modifier will only do so much, it applies the image from the orange planes angles, if you want perfect seams and a good unwrap you will need to make the UV's yourself, too bad the UV editor in GMax is really bad.

[Alf-Life]

Yeah, here's a link to some UVW Mapping tutorials for Gmax.

[Farles]

or you can use MY TUTORIAL.

[Zacker]

Which way is the easiest to get rid of a problem like this?

[Alf-Life]

Adjust your mapping... also, you can add a UVW Unwrap modifier on top of the UVW Mapping one, and (carefully!) adjust the co-ords... just don't go overboard and make the pixel size too high or low-res in comparisson with those around it.

[patriot]

Yepp doing what Alf said will fix it.

The easiest solution though would be to make the cylinder straight to begin with, then add the modifier before you bend it..

[Farles]

what I usually do for a complex tree with alot of branches:

-Model the whole tree

-Resave the scene with _uv suffix

-Then I put all the branches straight using vertex manip

-UV each resulting cylinders

-Export the UV map

-Reload it in the original model.

Always worked fine

[Kedhrin]

it's been so long since I've used Gmax, but if i remember correctly they have the same UVW unwrap tools that where released in release 3dsmax 5.

if that is the case, i prefer never to ever use the UVW Map tool...

and just start from scratch unwrapping, starting from a cylinder or a box or anything in the UVW Unwrap window can be a pain in the arse, I'd rather do it from a completely empty screen - poly by poly - but that's just a personal preference.

[patriot]

I'm pretty sure it was the tools from 3dsmax4, but simpler, for example you can't see what face connects to another and there isn't any automatic unwrapping of parts, I guess it works if youve never used the "real thing" but personally I would go crazy