NOTE: I’VE COPIED & PASTED THIS AS IS FROM AN EMAIL I SENT MY INSTRUCTOR, TO WHICH HE HAS NOT YET REPLIED. HOWEVER, I NEED TO KNOW MY MISTAKE, BECAUSE THE CHANCES OF HIM REPLYING TO MY EMAIL ARE ZERO/ZIP/ZILCH/NADA!!!!! PLEASE HELP!!!!! THANKS IN ADVANCE :-) i posted to this forum before, and everyone’s been super helpful, i wanted to thank you all for your contributions and help! :-*

edit: i think the real question is--how do you apply textures to a material? or, how do you assign a texture to a material?

i read up on uv mapping and tried redoing my project. i was able to do the uv mapping, following step-by-step instructions, but when i rendered my project (just a model w/ some textures, no animation or anything fancy), it came out gray (rendering in maya hardware), the colors did not render at all.

when i render it in maya software, the colors render, but obviously, i get the rough edges. i tried aliasing-schmaliasing, and nothing happened, still got rough edges. i tried rendering in mental ray, but i get a message, something about it not being supported. makes no difference, though, right? as it’s supposed to render in maya hardware perfectly, right? or, wrong?

anyway, when i view the project in default render mode, the model looks perfect, it’s exactly as i want it to be. but, when i view the project (model) in high quality render mode, the colors disappear, and i’m left w/ a gray geometry.

help! what could be causing this? why aren’t i getting the colors in high quality render view, and why are the colors disappearing when i render it in maya hardware? and how come i AM getting the colors when i render it in maya software (despite the edges being rough)?

more details…

off the top of my head, i read something about texture mapping, which has to do w/ uv mapping, right? anyway…

i forgot to mention the project (model) i’m working on...i painted it using the 3d paint tool. basically, i created a model, did the uv mapping, and went straight to the 3d paint tool to add textures. all my textures on this model were created w/ the 3d paint tool.

also, i’m reading my book and it says you can rename files (materials, textures, etc.) and i noticed it says to name a file, you give it a descriptive name and add the capital letter M to it, ex: bodyM. in my original model, i did not rename the files, i left the default file name. the funny thing is, when i was goofing around trying to figure out my mistake, i created a polygon (cube), did the uv mapping, and assigned names to the files (i used 2 blinns), i called one yellowM and the other pinkM, and when i went to render, it came out perfectly. (i added yellow to 5 sides of the cube and pink to 1 side.) so, now my question is, is it just that i’m not naming my files correctly? do i, in fact, have to add that capital M to the tail-end of the file name, ex: bodyM for it to render? (i’m grasping at straws, here!!!)

or, does that have nothing to do w/ 3d paint textures? and...do you have to rename the 3d paint texture something else? i just skimmed the book i have, and i saw something about texture mapping, where the file name looks something like, ex: nameTexture. must i rename the texture file to include the word “Texture” on the tail-end of the file name? or is it perfectly ok to leave the default name?

now then, i saw something in my book about connecting textures to materials. does that happen automatically? i seem to recall it saying that it does. i could be wrong in my understanding, though. could this be the problem? must i, in fact, connect the textures to the materials, and if so, how would i go about doing that? (i’d love to wait for you to show us in class, but i’m eager to learn it NOW!!! so, if it’s not too much trouble, please let me know how that’s done. thanks!)

i see in the book the textures are connected to the materials w/ what seem to be yellow arrows, or what-have-you, but when i open the hypershade, mine don’t appear to be connected. could this be the step i’m messing up on?

i’m following the book to the letter, i’m going slowly, step-by-step, but i must admit, it’s complicated. i’m a quick learner, as long as someone shows me what to do. this book is and at times, is not clear, so i’m stuck.

at any rate, if you can make sense of this, i’d love to hear what you have to say. please let me know what i’m doing wrong.

this is a looooonnnnngggggggggg shot, but i think i might have found my mistake…

is it my understanding that you cannot start adding textures/colors to a model without actually creating a material, first?

so, basically, i messed up by not assigning the materials, first, before i started adding textures to my model. i have a funny feeling the texture i added to my model wound up being assigned to lambert1 (default), b/c when i went back and tried to delete the texture, i lost my geometry, as well!

so…

you need to “shield” the geometry before you can apply textures to it, correct? and by shielding it, you, in essence assign textures to materials, aside from lambert1, itself?

so, my revised question is…

since i did not assign a material to my model before painting on it, and since i already have the texture i want, can i simply go into the hypershade at this point and create a material (ex: lambert) to assign this texture to? or, is it too late? do i have to start over w/ a naked model, so to speak?

please let me know! thank you!

p.s. if i’m off by a long shot, please let me know where i went wrong (from my previous post above).

p.p.s. i’m just a beginner, so if my wording is a little off, bear w/ me. i don’t have the terminology down just yet. ;-)

Correct, you do not apply a texture map directly to a model, you apply a material to a model.
Texture maps must be assigned in the material.

n8skow [FA]

Saving as tiff will ensure higher image quality than jpeg.

n8skow [FA]

since this post is closely related to my other post, i hope you don’t mind my quoting my other post here, since it applies to this post, as well…

UPDATE…

great big sigh of relief!!!!! ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

i rendered it in mental ray, and it looks perfect; however, now my question is…

why does my model still come out speckled when i render in maya hardware? is it a setting that needs to be tweaked? is it my graphics card (gawd forbid!)? what what?! and how do you soften the rough edges when you render in maya software? (b/c everything seems to be in place rendering in maya software, besides the rough edges.) *scratching head*

let me know! much obliged! :-D