gmax - tutorials and more

Taelon's gmax Tutorials

Tutorial 3

Two ways to simulate a cityscape

Other On Site Tutorials

This section under construction! I plan to do a complete rewrite of both methods shown here into one easy to follow tutorial.
Recently, Pit asked for help at the gmaxsupport.com forums with mapping an extruded plane.
Because the plane was mapped at creation the extrusion caused the map to distort as seen here.
Here are the steps I posted for fixing his scene and how to continue with the extrude method. I'll be modifying this tutorial soon to show how create and map an extruded plane from scratch. 1) Select your Mesh "Plane01", and Delete the modifiers you added above the Editable Mesh Object (Rt. click the modifier, select "Delete". Then make sure you are at the object level and move the whole mesh to X,Y,Z = 0.0 2) Create a new plane, same dimensions as "Plane01" = 2.54 x 2.54, set segments to 1, select "Generate Mapping Coords." and position it at 0,0,-0.5, then name it "ReferencePlane" or "Template" or something similar. 3) Open the Material Navigator, currently you have 12 Materials defined, all with the same map. I would delete them all (but leave the Multi-Material) to simplify navigation. (Double click the Mtl, then in Material Editor hit the "Delete" button). When all the Materials are deleted Plane01 will show it's default color. 4) Now click on Mtl#1 of the multi-material and assign your bitmap to it. Then apply it to your "ReferencePlane" (drag and drop), it will automatically be mapped correctly because the UV coordinates were applied in Step 2. (Don't apply it to "Plane02" yet. Close the Material Navigator. 5) Select the "ReferencePlane", Rt. Click over it, select "Properties" from the Transform Quad, then in the Display properties, uncheck "Show Frozen in Gray". Rt. Click anywhere and select "Freeze Selection" in the Display Quad Menu. (Now the "ReferencePlane" is unelectable). 6) Select Plane01, Rt. Click over it, select "Properties" from the Transform Quad, then in the Display properties, select "See-Through". 7) In the "Top View" Press "F3" to switch to smooth and highlights, then Press "F4" to Display Edges if necessary. In Vertex sub-object mode, select all the Verts for the building and move them into rough position, then select sub groups as needed to fine tune them. Check the Perspective view to make sure you don't skew the walls by mistake. 8) Now continue extruding faces, cutting edges, etc as needed for all the other buildings. 9) When you're satisfied with your 3D representation, unselect any faces or polys that might still be selected, make sure you're at the object level, then drag and drop Mtl#1 from the Multi-Material onto it. Turn of "See-Through" (Step 6). The mapping looks warped and distorted, but don't worry, the next step will fix it. 10) Apply a UVW map modifier to the entire mesh, it should now look perfect from the top. You should probably save the scene now, then collapse the stack, and "unfreeze all" from the Display Quad, select and delete the "ReferencePlane". 11) Now you can work on the mapping for the walls, in the Material Navigator, assign your wall texture Map to Mtl#2. 12) One way is to apply your wall mapping is to first select all the roof and ground Polys and be sure they are assigned to Material ID1, apply a Mesh Select modifier (Select by Material ID 1), then add a UVW Mapping modifier. Then select all the Wall Polys, scroll down to the "Surface Properties" rollout, assign Material ID:2 (type in "2" without the quotes, (don't use the spinner), hit ENTER. Then add another Mesh select modifier and select by Material ID 2. Finally add another UVW Mapping modifier to apply mapping coordinates to the walls. 13) Add a "Edit Mesh" modifier to the top of the stack, drag and drop your Multi-Material from the Material Navigator onto the mesh, and you should see both Materials mapped to the proper surfaces.
Here's an image after applying the above steps
Here's the modified .gmax file

This section will be completely redone, pardon my dust. Here's the same scene but instead of extruding a plane I'll show you a better and easier way using simple boxes.
See-through boxes, sized and positioned above the mapped reference plane from Tutorial 2
New plane created, boxes attached to plane. Then in Vertex Snap mode, vertices are target welded from the plane to the boxes.
Vertex welding done, a UVW Mapping modifier is applied.
Other On Site Tutorials Tutorial 1 Creating a Multi-Material and using as a Template Tutorial 2 Engraving Text using the Boolean Compound Object Tutorial 4 Faking Viewport Shadows with Vertex Colors Tutorial 5 Creating a Sword from a Spline.
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