Connect a bitmap to a material
- [Voiceover] We saw in the previous movie how to apply a procedural 3D map. Now let's apply a bitmap or a file texture. And I've got one prepared already that is designed to exactly fit onto this particular object, which is a cocktail table. Let's load up the material editor with the M key on the keyboard. We've got a bunch of stuff in here already that's left over from the last demo. I can, of course, delete those. That's not gonna remove them from the objects in the scene.
Let's make a material to put on that cocktail table. And we're gonna go to the materials section, here it is. Let's make it a physical material, drag that over. Double click and rename it, we'll call it "cocktail table". And now we want to apply a bitmap or a file texture. And that's going to be found here in the maps section. Bitmap, bring that over. And as soon as we do that we get a pop-up dialogue asking what file do we want. Notice very importantly where it's taking me.
Current project, scene assets, images. And this is where all of your bitmap textures really need to be. If you place your bitmap textures into some other folder then it's extremely likely that you're going to have issues with broken links to your textures. When you apply a texture or a bitmap in a 3D program like 3ds Max, you're not actually encapsulating that information in the scene file. In other words, you're linking to an external file. And it's really important that 3ds Max be able to find that external file later.
And the easiest, best, and most logical way to do that is to keep all your file textures within the current project in this designated folder, which is scene assets, images. The worst thing your could possible do here is to start navigating to some other location on your hard drive and link to some random place. And that's a bad idea for a lot of reasons, One, it's extremely likely that the texture links are gonna get broken. It also means if you ever change the location of that file it won't be found.
You won't be able to move your project effectively to a different folder or a different computer. Just keep everything within the current project in the proper designated folder and you should be okay. Alright so if you do have issues with broken links I'll show you how to fix that later in a subsequent movie. I'll select the file I want which is cocktail_tableDiffuseMap.png, and click open. And we can make that bigger here if I double click. And you can see that it's got a peculiar layout.
Again it was created specifically for this one object. And if I try to apply this bitmap onto any other object it wouldn't wrap correctly. I wanna connect that to the base color, also known as the diffuse color. And now I'm ready to go, I can assign this. Select the object, and then assign to the object. Okay I've got my material selected and I can click on assign material to selection. And you'll notice that it changed color slightly, but we don't see the texture appearing on the surface.
And that's because a quirk of the 3ds Max material design and the viewports. Which is that if you want to see a texture on a surface, you have to manually enable it. And that's what we have over here. There's a button, show shaded material in viewport. That's a little bit misleading because we're already seeing shaded materials here. They're not wire frame, they're actually shaded. What this really means is show textures, show maps in the viewport. And before you click this, you wanna choose the appropriate node in your shading network.
If I selected the material and then click that button. Boom, we can see that bitmap appear on there. And if I had other maps, let's say I had a bump map or a specular map or whatever, if I select the root node or the material node and then click on show shaded material in viewport, I would see the combined effect of all of the maps here. If I wanted to see just one of them, I can select it explicitly here, double click it, and then click on that button.
Okay, so we've created our shading network for a bitmap, and we can take a look at that a little more closely. Let's convert this view to a perspective view. Use the P key on the keyboard and now we're looking through a perspective view instead of a physical camera. And then press the Z key to get closer. And we can see that the texture is wrapping very nicely on that surface. That's because I set that up in advance for this particular object. In a subsequent movie, I'll show you how to place standard bitmaps onto surfaces interactively.
So that's how you work with bitmap file textures in a shading network.
Author
Released
4/18/2016Learn how to get around the 3ds Max interface and customize it to suit your production pipeline. Discover how to model different objects using splines, NURBS, polygons, subdivision surfaces, and tools such as Paint Deform. Then find out how to construct hierarchies, add cameras and lights to a scene, and animate with keyframes. Author Aaron F. Ross also takes an-depth look at materials and texture mapping as well as the rendering options in 3ds Max 2017, including the new Autodesk Raytracer (ART) renderer.
- Customizing and configuring the interface
- Selecting, duplicating, and editing objects
- Working with sub-objects in the modifier stack
- Performing polygonal and subdivision surface modeling
- Freeform modeling and sculpting
- Modeling with splines and NURBS
- Linking objects in hierarchies
- Framing shots with cameras
- Creating and editing keyframes
- Controlling lights and shadows
- Building materials
- Mapping textures
- Rendering sequences
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
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Introduction
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Welcome59s
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Using the exercise files2m 23s
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1. Getting Started
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Choosing a workspace1m 45s
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Setting preferences3m 40s
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Using project folders6m 7s
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2. 3ds Max Interface
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Navigating in viewports6m 13s
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Using hotkeys3m 11s
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Specifying display units3m 7s
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Specifying system units4m 17s
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Defining the home grid3m 27s
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Choosing shading modes4m 26s
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Configuring viewports2m 49s
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Customizing hotkeys5m 18s
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3. Manipulating Objects
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Choosing a coordinate system4m 17s
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Collecting objects in groups6m 16s
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4. Using the Modifier Stack
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Moving a pivot point2m 43s
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Selecting subobjects3m 26s
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5. Spline Modeling
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Creating a line5m 10s
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Editing vertex types4m 58s
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Editing splines3m 51s
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Understanding NURBS4m 42s
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Rendering splines3m 39s
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Adding a Bevel modifier5m 35s
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6. Polygon Modeling
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Creating an image plane8m 23s
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Tracing an image plane5m 56s
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Adding edges with Cut4m 16s
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Preparing Boolean operands8m 55s
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Cutting with Booleans4m 48s
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Creating doors and windows5m 44s
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7. Sub-Object Polygon Editing
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Detailing with Chamfer5m 45s
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Branching with Extrude5m 45s
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Welding vertices4m 43s
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8. Subdivision Surface Modeling
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Baking subdivisions3m 27s
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9. Freeform Modeling
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Using Paint Deform brushes6m 27s
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Setting Paint options3m 37s
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Controlling Brush options3m 34s
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10. Hierarchies
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Understanding hierarchies3m 23s
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Linking objects6m 32s
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Locking transforms3m 29s
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11. Layout and Camera
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Merging scenes2m 57s
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Managing display layers5m 50s
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Creating a target camera3m 51s
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Creating a free camera5m 16s
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Enabling Safe Frames3m 41s
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12. Keyframe Animation
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13. Lighting
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Creating photometric lights3m 45s
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Adjusting exposure control6m 37s
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Using the art renderer5m 52s
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Adjusting light shape3m 49s
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Adjusting light distribution6m 38s
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Creating a sun and sky8m 19s
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Using the Light Explorer7m 45s
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14. Materials
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15. Mapping Textures
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Placing 3D procedural maps8m 24s
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Mapping bitmap image files4m 55s
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Tracking scene assets7m 3s
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Projecting UVs with UVW Map5m 24s
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Using Real-World Map Size2m 10s
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16. Rendering
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Choosing a renderer5m 57s
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Rendering standard lights4m 14s
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Controlling shadows7m 30s
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Rendering an image sequence5m 28s
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Conclusion
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Next steps53s
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Video: Mapping bitmap image files