I’ve been workin on a bar scene for a couple months now. I’ve gotten wonderful help from you guys about lighting and everything. The first image (the color image) was the old scene. Since then, I’ve totally recreated the scene from scratch. I’m almost done with the basic modeling, but I have a question.

I have lotsa objects in this scene that are made of separate parts, for example the booth canopy is made of boxes and planes. I’m going to texture the entire canopy (stairs, beams, floor, etc). Is it better to create textures for each individual object, or combine them all into one object. I know that if I do them all seperate, I will end up with a million materials. But if I texture one combine object, I will need to stretch out UVs. What’s your take on this?

Also, how do you create more material slots in Max?

PS...how do I move this post to the Materials category? It was originally gonna be about smoothing models...but it’s not.

3DS Max 8

Windows Vista Home Premium
Service Pack 2

Intel Pentium Dual 1.6GHz
2G RAM
32-Bit

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You cant “make more slots” in the ME, just re-use the ones that are there. If the material is active (on a scene object) you can get it bak with the “eyedropper” button or from the scene in the Material Browser.

You can’t move the thread, but being a kindly soul I’ll move it for you ;)

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Thank you so kindly for moving it for me. It was pretty heavy!

3DS Max 8

Windows Vista Home Premium
Service Pack 2

Intel Pentium Dual 1.6GHz
2G RAM
32-Bit

You cannot create a new forum, but you can (and should) create a new thread/topic for your question. Click the “New Topic” button near the top of the forum display page.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

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It would probably be simpler to apply the mapping to the separate objects. If for example they have a woodgrain texture, you may want the grain in different directions for separate pieces of wood. That’s not impossible with objects combined together, but it’s not as simple to do.
After the textures and materials are applied, there is no reason you can’t combine the objects into a single mesh then, to lighten the scene a bit for rendering. All the UV coords will remain.

So you’re saying I can combine all these objects into one mesh and they will retain their UV coordinates?

Also, don’t clown my models, I know I need to make them more detailed. They look like Nintendo64 models! lol

3DS Max 8

Windows Vista Home Premium
Service Pack 2

Intel Pentium Dual 1.6GHz
2G RAM
32-Bit

	Attachment

Gellykat 06 March 2010 02:37 AM

So you’re saying I can combine all these objects into one mesh and they will retain their UV coordinates?

Yes, the UV mapping will stay the same, but if you plan to collapse things together, make sure you have your Multi/Sub-Object material set up first, and all material IDs set correctly.  You can let Max create the MSO for you, but I prefer to do so myself, and have the different materials somewhat organized.

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA