Texturing

24 Sep 2010

TexturingThis is the third tutorial in my four part series dealing with character animation. These tutorials are targeted to beginners wanting to learn the basics of organic modeling, unwrapping, texturing, rigging, and creating a cute 3d monster. In this third part we’re dealing with texturing. You’ll learn how to create and apply textures with Viewport Canvas. I’ll do my best to keep things as simple as possible. I’m using 3ds Max 2011 and Photoshop.


Step 1 What is Texturing?

In 3d graphics, texturing means the process of creating and applying textures to the model. In fact, the term texturing consist of two things: UVW mapping and texture painting. UVW mapping was covered in my previous tutorial and this one will concentrate on the texture painting. We’re going to create the texture by using Photoshop and Viewport Canvas. Viewport Canvas is a 3D paint inside of 3ds Max. In the picture below you see the result of this tutorial.

Monster textured in 3ds Max 2011

Step 2 Mental Ray Renderer

We’re going to render the scene with Mental Ray. By default 3ds Max uses Scanline renderer so we have to change that. Change the renderer to Mental Ray ( Rendering > Render Setup… > Common tab > Assign Renderer > Production > mental ray Renderer ).

Step 3 Prepare the Model for Texturing

We continue from the unwrapping tutorial. As a starting point we should have the unwrapped model with the Turbosmooth modifier applied. We don’t need the checker material anymore so let’s get rid of that:

  1. Open Material Editor ( Press ‘m’ in keyboard ).
  2. Select a new (empty) material slot.
  3. Click “Get Material” button and select ( doubleclick ) ‘Arch & Design (mi)’ from the list ( Materials > mental ray > Arch & Design ).
  4. Assign the new material to the monster ( drag and drop ).

3D model in 3ds Max

Step 4 Texturing with Viewport Canvas

Viewport Canvas is a new feature in 3ds Max. I think it was introduced in 3ds Max 2010 and in 2011 it has been completely upgraded. If you don’t have 3ds Max 2011 you unfortunately can’t really follow this tutorial. If you have Photoshop, you could render a UVW template ( Unwrap UVW > Parameters > Edit… > Tools > Render UVW Template… ) and try to apply the ideas on top of that. Anyway, let’s launch Viewport Canvas and start painting.

  1. Select the monster model.
  2. Open Viewport Canvas ( Tools > Viewport Canvas… ).
  3. Click on the ‘Paint’ tool ( to activate the paint mode ).
  4. Select ‘Diffuse Color Map: …’ from the menu ( Viewport Canvas needs to know which map channel we’re painting.). A new dialog appears.
  5. Set the size of the texture map to 2000×2000.
  6. Select the folder for your file, name your file, and select PNG as file format ( I recommend choosing RGB 24 bit as color depth. Alpha channel is not needed. ).
  7. Click ‘OK’ to save the file.

Texturing with Viewport Canvas

Step 5 Starting Texture Painting

Let’s use the Fill and Gradient tools to give some color to our monster:

  1. Go to the front viewport.
  2. Select green color ( R103 G132 B58 ).
  3. Active the Fill tool and click on top of your monster.
  4. Open the Layers dialog ( Layers work just like in Photoshop ).
  5. Create and activate a new layer.
  6. Select dark green color (R44 G56 B24).
  7. Activate the Gradient tool. Click and hold on the bottom of the monster, drag upwards, and release when you’re satisfied with the gradient.

Texture painting in Viewport Canvas

Step 6 Saving the Texture

Deactivate the Gradient tool ( or whatever paint tool you have currently activated ). A new dialog appears. At the moment there are two layers but layers cannot be saved in a PNG file so something has to be done. There are several options and they are all pretty self-explanatory. We select ‘Save as PSD and replace texture in material’. I think that’s usually the most preferred choice. Now the file is saved as PSD and applied to the diffuse color channel in the material. You might wonder why we didn’t save the file as PSD in the first place. Unfortunately 3ds Max doesn’t allow that at the moment but I’m guessing it will change soon.

Step 7 Working with Photoshop

Next we’re going to work with Photoshop to create some texture:

  1. Open this file in Photoshop
  2. Desaturate the image ( Image > Adjustments > Desaturate )
  3. Apply ‘Palette Knife’ filter ( Filter > Artistic > Palette Knife… ). I used values ( 15, 3, 0 ). The idea is to have a painted look to the texture.
  4. The image size should be the same as our texture size in 3ds Max. Adjust if necessary.
  5. Save the file and return to 3ds Max.

Step 8 Apply the Texture to the Model

Let’s apply the texture to our model. You could do it in Photoshop but I’m using Viewport Canvas:

  1. Select the monster model.
  2. Open Viewport Canvas ( Tools > Viewport Canvas… ).
  3. Activate any paint tool ( to activate the paint mode ) and Open the ‘Layers Dialog’.
  4. Create and select a new layer
  5. Apply the texture we just created to the new layer ( In the Layers Dialog: File >Load Bitmap Into Current Layer… )
  6. Change the blending mode of the new layer to Overlay
  7. Change the opacity of the new layer to 35%

Viewport Canvas workflow

Tip: If the texture is displayed in low resolution go to the display driver settings and and maximize the resolution ( Customize > Preferences… > Viewports > Configure Driver… > Appearance Preferences > Download Texture Size > Match Bitmap Size as Closely as Possible ).

Step 9 Removing Texture Seams

Now the monster has a nice painted look but unfortunately the texture seams are clearly visible. Next we’re going to do something that would be really difficult in Photoshop but really easy in 3d paint. We’re going to use the Clone tool to paint over the seams:

  1. Activate the Clone tool.
  2. Orbit around the model to get a good view of a seam.
  3. Select suitable brush radius ( I recommend using a pretty large brush ). Tip: The shortcut to brush radius is CTRL + SHIFT + Left click & drag.
  4. Set the sampling point by positioning the pointer to suitable area on the monster and ALT-clicking.
  5. Paint over the seam.
  6. Use this method to remove all the seams. You must set the sampling point again several times until you are done. Convincing cloning takes usually some time. Experiment with the hardness of the brush as well.

Cloning seams

Step 10 Creating Details

Let’s create more details by adding another texture to our layer stack ( just like in step 6 ):

  1. Load this file.
  2. Create and select a new layer ( Make sure the new layer is the topmost layer. You can change their order by dragging and dropping ).
  3. Apply the texture to the new layer ( In the Layers Dialog: File >Load Bitmap Into Current Layer… )
  4. Clone the seams away
  5. Change the blending mode of the new layer to Overlay
  6. Change the opacity of the new layer to 30%

Now we have more small details in our texture. As you see this is very fast method of adding some random details to the surface. Now our diffuse map is complete. Next we’re going to create and apply texture maps to bump and reflection channels as well.

Step 11 Applying Reflection Color Map

Let’s apply a reflection color map to the material:

  1. In Viewport Canvas, deactivate any paint tool you might have active ( this is done to deactivate the paint mode).
  2. In Viewport Canvas, go to the ‘Options’ rollout and change ‘Paint On:’ from Diffuse Color Map to Reflection Color Map. A new dialog appears.
  3. Set the size of the texture map to 2000×2000.
  4. Select the folder for your file, name your file, and select PNG as file format ( I recommend choosing RGB 24 bit as color depth. Alpha channel is not needed. ).
  5. Click ‘OK’ to save the file.

Texture painting workflow

Step 12 Painting on the Reflection Color Map

Now there is a blank texture in the reflection color channel. In reflection color channel we paint matte areas with black and shiny/reflective areas with white. Let’s paint some drool:

  1. Activate the Paint ( brush ) tool.
  2. Select white color.
  3. Select rather large Radius ( CTRL + SHIFT + Right-click and drag. Suitable radius depends on the zoom level ).
  4. Make sure Hardness is set to zero.
  5. Open the ‘Layers Dialog’
  6. Create and select a new layer.
  7. Paint around the mouth to create some drool.
  8. Activate the Fill tool.
  9. Select black color.
  10. Select the Background layer
  11. Click on the model to paint it black. ( keep in mind that in the paint mode you see just the paint. The final reflection effect is seen only in rendering. )
  12. Deactivate the Fill tool ( to deactivate the paint mode ). A new dialog appears. Select ‘Save as PSD and replace texture in material’. Now the file is saved as PSD and applied to the reflection color channel in the material.

Painting reflection map

Step 13 Reflection Glossiness Map and Bump map

Let’s make the texture more interesting by adding a reflection glossiness map and a bump map:

  1. Open Material Editor ( Press ‘m’ in keyboard )
  2. Go to the ‘General Maps’ rollout and drag and drop the texture we just created from ‘Reflection Color’ to ‘Reflection Glossiness’. Select ‘Instance’ when asked.
  3. Go to the ‘Special Purpose Maps’ rollout and set the bump value to 0,05.
  4. Now we’re going to create the bump texture in Photoshop. Go to Photoshop and open the diffuse texture we created earlier (PSD).
  5. Make a duplicate of the diffuse texture ( Image > Duplicate… ).
  6. Close the original and work with the duplicate. Delete all layers except the one we created and applied in steps 7-8. Change the blending mode of the layer from Overlay to Normal and Opacity to 100. Save it as PNG file.
  7. Go back to 3ds Max and add the new file to the Bump channel ( Maps > Standard > Bitmap > bump.png ).

Creating material

Now the material is complete and we go on with the lighting and rendering.

Step 14 Lighting and Rendering Setup

We’re going to use a basic three-point lighting setup to illuminate the monster. Since this is essentially a texturing tutorial I’m not going to go through the lighting in detail but I’ll give you the exact settings you can use:

  1. Key light: Mental Ray Area Spot ( Create panel > Lights > Standard > mr Area Spot ).
    Intensity/Color/Attenuation > Multiplier: 1,5
    Area Light Parameters > Height: 200
    Area Light Parameters > Width: 200
  2. Rim Light: Mental Ray Area Spot ( Create panel > Lights > Standard > mr Area Spot ).
    Intensity/Color/Attenuation > Multiplier: 1,4
    Area Light Parameters > Height: 200
    Area Light Parameters > Width: 200
  3. Fill Light: Skylight ( Create panel > Lights > Standard > Skylight ).
    Multiplier: 0,4
    Sky Color: pure white
  4. Drool Light: Omni ( Create panel > Lights > Standard > Omni ).
    Advanced Effects > Diffuse: Off

Three point lighting

Let’s adjust the sampling settings to get a polished render. Go to the render setup and increase antialiasing quality by increasing Mental Ray’s sampling values ( Rendering > Render setup… > Renderer > Sampling Quality ):

  • Samples per pixel
    • Minimum: 4
    • Maximum: 64
  • Filter
    • Type: Mitchell ( For most scenes the Mitchell filter gives the best results. ).

Finally change the background color to black ( Rendering > Environment… > Common Parameters > Background > Color) and hit render. Below you see the final rendered image. I made some color correction in Photoshop as well:

  • Brightness: 40
  • Contrast: 20

Texturing tutorial

Thanks for reading!

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52 Responses to “Texturing”

  1. LuckySeven says:
    September 24, 2010 at 9:26 am

    Thank You very much, for another nice tutorial.

    Reply
  2. Levithan says:
    September 24, 2010 at 11:44 am

    Very cool, thanks for this tutorial.

    Reply
  3. Kriemoon says:
    September 24, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    Very nice tutorial once again! Viewport canvas in 2011 really made texturing far less troublesome. It was indeed introduced in 2010 but didn’t had the layers system. Also the way brushes effected the model changed.

    Can’t wait for step 4, keep it up! :)

    Reply
  4. Pitter says:
    September 24, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    Hi-to thanks.
    i want many so good information about texture and materiales.

    Reply
  5. 3D-Maxer says:
    September 24, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    Awesome as always, but the problem is I stopped at Unwrapping and I couldnt continue :-(

    Reply
  6. Ryan says:
    September 24, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    FInally the texturing step, :) thank you so much, it’s so easy to follow :) it really helps. Thank you.

    Reply
  7. 3D-Maxer says:
    September 24, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    I Finally finished the unwrappingtut, but i’m stuck on step 4, I opened the Viewport canavas and i selected the Monster Model, but it says “No vaild object please select editable poly object” please HELP!!! i’m using 2010

    Reply
    • polygonblog says:
      September 24, 2010 at 5:13 pm

      Try to collapse your modifier stack ( right-click on modifier stack and select ‘collapse all’ from the menu ). You’ll of course lose the modifiers…

      Reply
      • sma says:
        May 18, 2011 at 7:01 pm

        i’m stuck on step 4, I opened the Viewport canvas and i selected the Monster Model, but it says “A valid object is not selected you need to have one geometry object selected that has a material applied” please HELP me!!! i’m using 2011

    • Benjamin says:
      January 14, 2011 at 11:37 pm

      First sellect you model and then the tool in canavas =)

      Reply
  8. Mardem says:
    September 25, 2010 at 12:55 am

    very good…i have 3ds max 2010 and i couldn’t work with viewport canvas..so i did it in photoshop..thanks..
    looking forward for the last part..

    Reply
  9. 3D-Maxer says:
    September 25, 2010 at 11:07 pm

    I texture it with photshop and that what i got, could you please tell if thats Good, cuz if its not i’m getting 2011

    http://www.mediafire.com/?9skd0tzc5v3ajlc

    Reply
  10. Sophie says:
    September 26, 2010 at 11:43 pm

    Hey i followed your tutorials and i’d love to animate my little creature. Could you put up a tutorial for this please?

    Thanks for the great advice.

    :)

    Reply
  11. polygonblog says:
    September 27, 2010 at 9:25 am

    Yes, rigging (preparing for animation) is the next step. I’m going to write something simple about that.

    Reply
  12. kadeer says:
    September 30, 2010 at 1:56 pm

    OMG! the monster is so cute! i noticed its the same monster on the polygonblog’s Logo! nice job! who knew such a simple thing could be so cute?

    Reply
  13. Integrity says:
    October 3, 2010 at 1:17 am

    When I click on the Paint tool with my model selected, it says : “not a valid object. You need to have an editable poly object selected that has the standard material and a defuse texture map.
    Use the setup at the top of the interface to automatically create the material and the texture.”

    Can anyone help me please.

    Reply
    • polygonblog says:
      October 3, 2010 at 12:41 pm

      Do you have 3ds Max 2010? You can turn your object to editable poly by right-clicking on the modifier stack and selecting ‘Collapse all’ from the menu. You will, of course, lose the modifiers…

      Reply
      • Integrity says:
        October 6, 2010 at 10:18 am

        Yeah, I have 2010. Thats what I thought as well.
        Thanks for the advice.

  14. U. says:
    October 5, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    Still reading your blog!

    When will 4th step be up? My teacher doesn’t look at how good the thing is, but how well it is animated :( .

    Reply
  15. Aleksandro Araújo says:
    October 6, 2010 at 3:42 am

    Thank you for the great tutorial.
    The world needs more people like you! Sharing your knowledge with others.

    Reply
  16. A3raj A3raj says:
    October 11, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    amazing!!
    will you post the animation tutorial soon ?? i cant wait :D

    Reply
  17. Felipe Murillo says:
    October 16, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    Hey thanks for this kind of tutorials, theyr amazing ;D
    Well i got this outcome http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/8086/monofinal.jpg
    I use 3D max 09, so i textured in PS
    any advice?

    Reply
  18. Murhu says:
    October 18, 2010 at 1:23 am

    Nice tuts really amazing… I did the texture on photoshop, I use 3dmax 09, but still it looks pretty nice for me… any advice?
    uvw unwrapping
    http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m125/huicho266/mono.jpg

    Complete texture and all that :D
    http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m125/huicho266/monosangroso.jpg

    well keep on, cant wait for the next one

    Reply
  19. Integrity says:
    October 19, 2010 at 7:55 am

    I did what you told me to.
    However now I have another problem, I cant find follow step 4 as in 4th part of it I do not have diffuse map option.
    Here is how my canvas interface looks like
    http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/8241/canvaserr.jpg

    Reply
    • polygonblog says:
      October 19, 2010 at 5:59 pm

      Unfortunately I don’t know how to proceed in 3ds Max 2010. I’ve used it only in 2011. Hopefully you figure it out!

      Reply
      • Nojvok says:
        October 22, 2010 at 6:29 pm

        Any chance that the next installment will be out this weekend? :)

  20. polygonblog says:
    October 22, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    I’m working on it right now so there is a slight chance ;) but more likely it will be out on monday or tuesday.

    Reply
    • Nojvok says:
      October 23, 2010 at 8:05 am

      Can’t wait. :)

      Reply
    • Donald says:
      February 13, 2011 at 7:24 pm

      so i have too the same problem. anyone know how i can follow this tutorial by using the 3ds max 2010 my canvas not looks like this((

      Reply
  21. Demonith says:
    October 24, 2010 at 3:45 am

    Nice tutorials keep up !

    Can u make a modeling Character something like human :)

    Reply
    • polygonblog says:
      October 28, 2010 at 9:49 am

      Thanks for your suggestions. I’ll keep that in mind.

      Reply
  22. hannes says:
    November 14, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    hey

    your tutorials are really good, but i have a question
    how can i place a bitmap texture and a opacity texture on the same object? and thx for the tip to remove the lines between textures :)

    Reply
  23. casiel says:
    November 14, 2010 at 7:25 pm

    hey im finding this a litttle bit hard but since the part of modeling it can ayone post the max file with the monster modeled thats the hardest part everything iin other tutorials i cqan make them but please can you give me the file of the monster only the model not nedded of texture or rigid or everything else please

    Reply
  24. Intars5d says:
    November 16, 2010 at 12:47 am

    Nice bunch of tuts. I am not a beginer in 3d and max and still found your tutorials to be very good ones to refresh basics and learn few new tricks.
    This viewport canvas – hadn’t used it so far. Seems cool tool. Hiding seems is so easy now.
    Valuable lessons, thanks.

    Reply
    • polygonblog says:
      November 16, 2010 at 7:13 am

      Thanks! Amazing youtube vids!

      Reply
  25. sarf2k4 says:
    December 12, 2010 at 7:39 am

    Hi,

    should I worry about artifacts that I found on its body?

    http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/dIBoEkuFqLX4WSqrFE9peA?feat=directlink

    Reply
  26. CybranM says:
    March 2, 2011 at 12:46 am

    Hi, im stuck at step 7, the palette knife wont change the look of the texture. Im not getting that nice dark contrast that your image shows…
    do you have to change some settings in PS or what could be wrong?

    Reply
  27. Abel says:
    March 11, 2011 at 1:00 am

    I don’t know yet how to apply the light effects as i’m using 3DMax2010, but at least i managed to properly apply the texture after some serious issues lol.

    My results here: http://stalyan.com/2011/03/10/texture-mapping-in-3ds-max/

    Thanks very much Antti, you rock!! :D

    Reply
  28. Eldar says:
    March 14, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    i have a problem, when i done step 8, texture of my monster comes perfectly symetrical, i think i have made some mistakes at the UVW map but i dont know where to change it, please help ;)

    Reply
  29. Eldar says:
    March 14, 2011 at 1:11 pm

    Ohh, never mind, I have figured out it. When i was checking my monster i have found some polygon seams on the fore head, I moved the symmetry mirror and my UVW map have been reset. I just re-do the step and its all fine :P

    Reply
  30. JonnyB says:
    March 15, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    hey! just starting to pick up 3ds max, confusing but made so much easier by following your tutorials, thanks so much for doing these!

    I have a problem however, not sure if you’ll be able to help, maybe its something I did wrong way back…

    I got to step 9, where we blend the seams into each other using the clone tool, no matter what I do, nothing I do whilst painting on the model does anything. I’ve tried flattening layers, closing the canvas after painting, reloading files onto a new texture, I’ve tried just using the paint brush on a new layer to test and I cannot paint using this either, although everything that I do I can see being registered on the layer thumbnail in the layers dialogue, but not updated in the actual viewport.

    I’ve gone back to the beginning of the texture tutorial 3 times in case i missed something but it doesn’t seem to work! I made sure I followed the previous sections and my UV map looks like yours, although my model has an ever so slightly higher poly count. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks again for some good tutorials, I’m sure I’m just being dumb here…

    Reply
    • polygonblog says:
      March 16, 2011 at 11:12 am

      Thanks for the feedback! Unfortunately I have no idea what might be causing your problem. It sounds like a bug or a dislpay driver problem…

      Reply
  31. Ergodiem says:
    April 7, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    Very nice tutorial, I got almost the same result as you and I’m gonna try some color variations.

    Still somethinig quite annoying occurs to me, once I close the Viewport Canvas, my model becomes grey (although it still appears green when rendered). It’s not really a probleme, but I would prefer to have it the same colors as in the render.

    Here’s what I get:
    http://img508.imageshack.us/i/problemyk.jpg/

    Thank you anyway for your tutorial :D

    Reply
  32. shadowninja0069 says:
    May 30, 2011 at 7:24 am

    I caint ty enought for this,this will help me finely get past what to do next .
    When i make a model.
    and you start and finish allway ty agin.You sir Rock!!!!!

    Reply
  33. Pedro says:
    May 31, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Thanks for the awesome tutorial. Can you please detail how to apply the lights? I cant seem to make it work ;/

    Reply
  34. Berg says:
    June 12, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    Thanks for the tutorials. I learned quite a lot with them.
    I do not understand English very well, but did not get much work.

    This is my result: http://i51.tinypic.com/wk3jao.jpg

    Reply
  35. Pietro says:
    September 4, 2011 at 10:39 pm

    I am arrived here, great tutorial really! i have a question at the end of all this step, if i want change the color texture there is a sample way? or i have to do all step of tutorial 3 again?

    Reply
  36. John F says:
    December 18, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    I’ve went back and double checked my work, but as soon as made the reflection map (black w/ white around mouth), I cannot get the green texture to show in the viewport; only the black/white texture. Something that I did reverted the viewport back to grey like the base arch & design material.

    Is there a way to choose which map to show in the ‘Realistic’ viewports?

    Reply
  37. FARO15ful says:
    January 11, 2012 at 4:33 pm

    i have a problem with step 4. in 3 i can not click on the ‘Paint’ tool. please help me))
    http://endir.net/photo/photos/MEUXN_2236.jpg

    Reply
  38. Boris says:
    January 16, 2012 at 2:22 pm

    @Ergodiem & @John F

    http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r27/Halarion/pomoc.jpg

    hope this helps :)

    Reply
  39. simcha says:
    January 29, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    first i need to say thank you -
    i have a small problem : throw the eyes and moth i can see the background at render time ??

    Reply
  40. Peter says:
    January 30, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    You, kind Sir, simply rock, thx 4 all the tuts :D

    Reply

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