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Adding New Materials (3DSMax7)

 
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Bonkolina VIP Club Member 18+ Age Verified

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 2:20 pm    Post subject: Adding New Materials (3DSMax7) Reply with quote

Ok, I'm going to attempt not to sound like a complete noob to 3D developing, but the reality is...I am!

So I'm gonna ask one of you smart people to explain this to me like I'm a 3 year old.

After watching Nerseus' hair tutorial video 132 times (fabulous!) I got the basic concepts down pretty well about applying materials to objects, so no problem there. I was even so bold as to add a new material to the IMVU materials for the rigged female avi, and it worked great when I did a quick render in Max. Everything looked exactly as I expected it to.

I added the material under material ID 12. I simply wanted a different opacity map for the planes that I added than the one assigned to the base hair. So I referenced the same hair graphic and added a different opacity map.

However, once I got to the previewer, the first material showed as M-1 (not M12 as I expected) and of course the texture and opacity map isn't showing up at all.

Where did I go wrong? It's all that's standing between me and submitting my very first mesh after being a texture diva for 3 years. Help pretty please? Smile
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The M-1 means the material ID read by the XMF file is "-1". You can verify that by opening your XMF in a text editor. You can even change it there to 11 or 12 and things should be fine.

When you get a -1 material, the problem is usually one of two things:
* A proper material isn't assigned in Max
* The material assigned isn't named correctly

I'd say double check the material first:
* select your object and use the "Apply to Selection" button in material editor to make sure you've got the right material on your object
* Expand your "Edit poly" or "Edit mesh" modifier and choose Polygon, then select some polys in a viewport and then scroll down in the modifier panel to see what material they've got assigned. Hopefully a matching ID.
* Make sure the name of the "Standard" material has the bracketed name. That is, don't drill into the diffuse properties - you have to go "up one level" til the material shows "Standard" - that's the one you want.

-ner
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you so much for the response nerseus, however I am still not experiencing joy. I tried your suggestions and I still couldn't get the desired result, so I'm gonna show you what I'm doing and hopefully you can point out the error of my ways...


Here we can see the material assigned to the hair I added is "12" The material displays correctly in the viewport and when selecting the polygons.


I could see the material I defined earlier on the list. All I did here was click to attach the material to the selection


This is a drill down view of the material I added in slot 12.


Beginning the export process, I attach the items I created to the base hair.


Added the skin modifier as described in your tutorial, attaching the head bone.


Next, edit envelopes. checking off only Vertices


Selected everything then changed the weight props to Rigid with Abs. Effect 1.0 (even did the little 0.5 to 1.0 bug compensation trick)


Exported as myhair2.xmf without errors


Opened the previewer and derived from 10866, changed the xmf file referenced in geometry and this is what I got. The base seemed ok, but the second one I added didn't fare so well.




Another point of confusion is that the material I assigned to the base didn't display correctly either. So clearly the whole material aspect is FUBAR.

I'm hoping these screenshots will help. Sorry they're so large. I've been at this for days and still can't figure this out. This morning I thought maybe the graphics files associated with the material needed to be local, (they were on an external drive), so I copied them over to the same folder as the IMVU default textures, and pointed everything in the right direction for the maps on the local drive.

I'm completely stumped. At this point I don't mind looking like a complete idiot if it solves my problem. Smile
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Keef

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 9:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As Ner said, anytime that M-1 shows up there is a material assignment problem.


here is your problem, you are not using the proper material naming convention. make its say "[11] hair", "hair [11]" or just "[11]" instead of "hair 2 standard" and you should be good to go.

The [1] [2] [3] are what the previewer needs


*edit to add* you also you'll want to make that last box on the materials list true white so your not tinted gray. (click on it and change it to white then close the pop up)
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 9:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wooohoooo! That got me past the error!! THANK YOU KEEF! I suspected it would be something embarrassingly simple. Wink

However...




now that the material ID is out of the way, I notice there's no .xrf for the 2nd material, and the base material is showing as the default. I think I've missed a step in creating the xrf -- what didn't I do? I looked for an xrf to import, assuming the export process created one, but I didn't find it. M11 needs to have a unique opacity map.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 9:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Embarassed Missed the tutorial on exporting materials, I'm gonna go do that. lol
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, I'm inching toward the finish line. One problem now remains...


Chose the new hair material to export


Yup, those are the right maps


Brought the XRF into the previewer, no textures

Help.... Rolling Eyes
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

first off - yay!! So close!

On your last step in previewer - you have to select each texture slot (the diffuse and the opacity) and browse to the texture. The XRF you imported for each Material (M04 and M11) just defines how many slots you have and their filenames. It doesn't actually load the textures into previewer. You could have your XRF call the textures "cin-honey.jpg" and "hair-alpha.jpg" but end up loading "myhair.png" and "SuperAwesomeOpacity.GIF". The XRF is JUST for the "slots" that show up in previewer.

In fact, in some cases I skip exporting my XRF files. When I get to previewer I just load up generic ones that I keep in a separate folder such as "Texture1.xrf" or "Texture1WithOpacity.xrf".

-ner
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know, that's just what I did! lol Just wasn't sure if that's what I was supposed to do. Learning this is kinda like feeling your way around in a dark room, lol. THANK YOU so much for the assistance! Of course you know I'm gonna keep bugging you guys every time I hit a wall. Which I expect to be fairly often....hehe.

Thanks again, you guys are the BEST!
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Keef

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bonkolina wrote:
Wooohoooo! That got me past the error!! THANK YOU KEEF! I suspected it would be something embarrassingly simple. Wink

Would it help to know to this day I pretty much make that same error on every project. Embarassed


Yeah like ner I no longer bother with exporting materials, I just have a folder full of XRFs with various names and reuse them on dif projects. Any time I make a new one (just use notepad for that) I drop a copy in my master xrf file so I can use it again on something else.
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