Exterior WIP with a few questions

[WWX]

Hi,

First of, which viewpoint do you think is the best, 1 or 2. I like 1 the most, but 2 tells you alot more about the design, so I recon its mood versus info. Don't judge the lighting just the view angle.

Secondly, I don't know why I struggle so with textures in Max, obviously a user lack of skill , but in MicroStation, the other program I use I don't have any problems. Look at the lack of detail in the red circled gable end view 1. Then look at the close-up capture of what it looks like in the view port. It would seem to me that it shoud look more detailed in the rendering. Advice please.

Lastly, still on texturing, say I would like to apply this same texture to the other gable ends, do I have to create a copy of the texture in the material library and rename it and rework the tiling numbers as the gable ends differ in size or is there another way?

Thanks

[thablanch]

I like view 2 better,

Second and last goes together:
You can apply the same material on both shapes, just play with the UVW map scale. (modify stack) of each object

[redi]

I like the composition of view 1 more, i think it's more interesting

[WWX]

Thanks for the input so far.

After playing around some more, one of the "perks" of being off sick I came to this result.



To aid further input, let me give a quick run down of my process. I model in MicroStation and then save the file out as a DWG and use the file link function to get the data into MAX. I can't afford to build a model just for rendering purposes, so modeling in MAX ain't and option for me.

It all seems to work fine, until I start to texture and render. For example if I do a close-up rendering of the gable end it turns out as expected. But from a distance the bump map does not seem to have any effect and the texture map is all fussy.

After trying various options, I place a mesh smooth modifier on the element and set the iteration to 0 which gave me the above result. Strangely a glossy highlight area is now visible and the bump map and texture is rendered correctly only in this area.

So I have made progress, but the result and method does not make any sense to me.

[tom182]

hmm, does Microstation export as a DXF, 3DS ? you should reall look up the section on mapping in max, you should upload part of your scene so someone can see exactly what the issue is. There should really be no need to add meshsmooth to such an object, also looking at your map is appears to be a low res image?
Cheers
Tom

[WWX]

MS can export as DXF, IGES and STL and a few other ones, but not 3DS. Choosing one of these options certainly makes for a lot more work and loss of the file linking feature.

Originally the texture size was 512x512 @ 96dpi, since then I have played with it and its now 256x256 @ 72dpi.

Would it be sufficient if I upload only the gable end and where to can I upload file data?

Thanks

[rjw]

WWX,
Hi, a fellow Microstation user not so common in these parts.
Like you I use DWG LINK, works really well as you don't need to re assign materials.

I like the methodology in Microstation where the material mapping size is controlled within the material and I'm able to replicate this in Max, I here Max 8 has unit mapping (?) but I'm still using v7.

Once you've linked the DWG select everything (except cameras and lights, it won't work if they are) and apply a UVW modifier to everything as a 1x1x1 box if your units are meters, if mm make the box 1000x1000....(hope you're metric!)
now you can control the material mapping from the material definition. The scaling is a bit different from Microstation. for 0.5m you make the tile 2 (in Microstation this would be 0.5) and for 2m you make the tile 0.5 (Microstation it would be 2)

The down side of Microstation are the mapping modes, these are far better in Max so if you need a material to be mapped differently from the 1x1x1 box just delete the UVW modifier and apply a different on to those objects.

not sure about your bump map problem though, sorry!
HTH.

[nvanherpt]

i like no. 1