Creating a Material for the Fuselage, Wings, and Tail
 
 
 

For the main parts of the P-47 Thunderbolt, you will use a single, multipurpose texture map.

Set up the lesson:

  1. On the Quick Access toolbar, click (Open File), navigate to \scenes\materials_and_mapping\unwrap_uvw\ and open p47_texture_start.max.
    NoteIf a dialog asks whether you want to use the scene’s Gamma And LUT settings, accept the scene Gamma settings, and click OK. If a dialog asks whether to use the scene’s units, accept the scene units, and click OK.

    The airplane in this scene is a version of the P-47 model. It includes a shaft for the propellor, and a plane for the propellor itself. Materials have already been applied to the propellor and the cockpit canopy, but the fuselage, wings, and tail are not yet textured.

    The scene also includes an environment map for the background.

Create a material for the body of the airplane:

  1. Open the Slate Material Editor.
  2. From the Material/Map Browser panel at the left, drag a Standard material entry into the active View. (Materials Standard Standard).
  3. Double-click the Standard material node so you can see its parameters in the Parameter Editor panel at the right. Name the new material Fuselage.
  4. In the active View, drag a wire from the Diffuse Color input socket of the Fuselage material node, then release the mouse. Choose Standard Bitmap from the pop-up menu.

    3ds Max opens a file dialog.

  5. On the file dialog, make sure you are in your project’s \sceneassets\images folder. Click p47_tex.jpg to highlight it, then click Open.

    3ds Max adds a bitmap node to the Fuselage material. It adds a controller node as well.

    The bitmap p47_tex.jpg is a patchwork of different textures intended for various parts of the airplane. You will need to select faces and assign them to specific portions of the texture.

Apply the material to the airplane:

  1. Click the bitmap node to make it active, then on the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click to turn on (Show Shaded Material In Viewport).

    If you are using a legacy viewport driver (Direct3D, OpenGL, or Software), the tooltip for this button says "Show Standard Map In Viewport.")

  2. Move the Slate Material Editor window so you can see the viewport.
  3. Click the P-47 object, the main part of the airplane, to select it.
  4. In the Slate Material Editor, click the Fuselage material node to make it active, then on the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click (Assign Material To Selection).

    3ds Max applies the material to the body, wings, and tail of the airplane, but there is no sense to the way the texture is mapped. To arrange the various “pieces” of the texture, you will use Unwrap UVW.

  5. Close the Slate Material Editor.

Save your work:

Next

Using Unwrap UVW to Map the Left Wing