Managing materials in 3ds Max Design:

The LEGO MAN getting dressed

Tomas Benzon, DTU/MEK, July 2013

This tutorial is a continuation of Visualization of the LEGO man, describing how to place him in a virtual photo studio, arranging light and a camera, allowing you to render him, and save the pictures.

Here I will demonstrate how to put materials and textures on him, imitating the looks and appearances from real life, in order to create realistic looking images.

Before starting this tutorial you must copy the map Bitmaps to your X-drive:

R:\Kurser \41618-3ds Max Design\Bitmaps.

That done, open your completed Visualization of the LEGO man 3ds Max file, containing Mr. Lego himself, a studio and a lamp.

My plan is to dress him up with a jacket and a shirt…

So let us begin…

Right-Click on his torso and choose Isolate Selection.

You should only see the torso now.

Right-click it and choose convert to Editable poly.

Now it is time to define which polygons on the torso should be covered by a jacket (they get ID 1)…

And which ones by a shirt. (they get ID 2)

First we define the ID 1 polygons: Arrange a top view…

Select the torso…

Click the Modify button…

Enter Polygon level…

And choose all the polygons of the torso, using CTRL + A.

Set ID = 1…

And now the ID 2 polygons:

Still in top view, click in the background to deselect the polygons…

Choose from right to left the polygons on his chest and set their ID = 2

Rotate the view and use Select ID to check the polygon ID values. Here, it looks like most of the bottom polygons are ID’ed to 2. They should be converted to ID 1…

So: Jacket = ID 1 Shirt = ID 2

Remember this!

Fashion dictates that Mr. Lego dresses in a giraffe patterned jacket and a striped shirt.

To be able to control the size and the placement of these patterns, we need to place 2 UVW Maps on his torso.

Select the ID 1 polygons and Choose UVW Map as shown.

This way the Map will be assigned to the ID 1 polygons.

Name the UVW Map UVW jacket,

choose Box Mapping,

with L W H = 10,10,10

Check that Real-World Map size is Off,

and notice Map Channel = 1

Click the Editable Poly bar, enter Polygon level and select the ID 2 polygons…

Repeat the previous UVW procedure, only with Box L W H = 12,12,12 (so you dont mix up the two UVW boxes) and set Map Channel = 2

It should look like this… The torso is ready to get dressed.

Now it is time for the Jacket and Shirt material to be designed, using the Material Editor.

Press M to open it…

The Material Editor is opened. If it looks different on your screen, choose Modes and change from slate to compact

A quick overview:

Sample slot. This one is the active one, shown by the white edge

Naming field

Entry to the Material/Map browser

Close-up view: If you double-click the active Sample slot you will get this closer look. Check that Auto-update = On

Now we will design two materials - Jacket and Shirt - and later combine them in a new material: Torso-dress.

Click in the top left Sample Slot. In the Naming field write Giraffe.

Open the Material/Map browser…

In the Material/Map browser, under the Mental Ray bar, double click the Arch & Design tab – The browser closes.

the Arch & Design is a group of premade materials.

In the (Select a template) field, choose Pearl Finish

In the Diffuse zone, click in the Color field and choose a green color.

Double click on the Sample slot to get a Magnified view.

Please notice:

1)The small square to the right of the Color field

2)The similar layout of the Reflection and the Refraction zones

Confused? The Material Editor is Huge…

If you click the small square to the right of the Color field, you can replace the green color with a Map.

Here we will use a Bitmap (an image Map)…

Click the square - Again the Material/Map browser opens…

and double click Bitmap...

A new browser opens…

Now you should navigate to the Bitmap folder you copied to your X drive…

Choose giraffe.jpg and close the browser.

The sample slot updates. Please note that Map Channel = 1…

Click the Go to Parent button to go to the top level of the material.

Now we have created a material…

And now we will create a new one…

Put the cursor on the sample slot and drag and drop a copy next to it.

Name it Stripes…

Click on the M in the diffuse zone…

This time the Material/Map browser does not open..?

A bit downward a new bar, Bitmap Parameters opens...

Under the bar Bitmap Parameters you will see the path to the Giraffe.jpg image.

Click on it and replace Giraffe.jpg with Shirt-stribes. Jpg…

The sample slot gets a new look…

Change Map Channel from 1 to 2 and click the Go to Parent button

This was material no. 2…

Now we will combine the two materials we have created.

Click an empty sample slot…

Open the Material/Map browser…

Under the Standard bar double click the Multi/Sub-Object material…

When asked, choose discard old material…

Notice that there is an ID for each submaterial…

Under the Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters bar, click the Set Number button and type 2…

Drag and drop the Giraffe material to the None button as shown…

Choose Instance, when asked. (this means that if you modify your original material, the change will be repeated in the new material)…

In the Name field, write Jacket…

Repeat the procedure with the Shirt-stribes material….

Name the new material Torso-dress…

A Multi/Sub material has now been created…

Now it is time to test it – the following procedure can later be skipped, when you have got more experience with materials…

Right-Click on the screen background and choose Unhide all…

Answer No to unhide all layers…

When the whole figure is visible, click the screen background to deselect him…

Click the Layer icon to check which layer mr. Lego is placed on. This should be the active one…

Close the Layer dialogue…

Zoom out a bit to give room for creating a Box…

Its dimensions are not critical…

The box may look like this…

Right-click it and choose convert to Editable Poly…

Enter the Polygon level…

Press Ctrl + A to select all its polygons…

Set ID = 1

With all the faces still selected, create a UVW map…

Make the UVW box – shaped and LWH 10 x 10 x10…

Notice the default Map Channel = 1

Click background to deselect the box…

Enter the Material editor again, this time to ensure that the new material will display correctly:

Click the Giraffe button…

Click the Show shaded Material in Viewport button…

Click the Go forward to Sibling button to do likewise with the Stribes Submaterial…

Done that, Click the Go to Parent button to reach top level once again…

Drag and drop the Torso-Dress material to the box…

Submaterial 1 seems to work…

Now we will test Submaterial 2…

Click the box, enter the Polygon level, and change the ID of the polygons from 1 to 2…

Now activate the UVW Map and change Map Channel from 1 to 2…

Click screen to deselect…

Submaterial 2 looks OK…

You may create a new layer, place the box on it and make the layer invisible if you want to reuse the box for testing of other materials…

Now drag and drop the Torso-Dress material to his torso…

It almost got right…His shirt is buttoned a bit unconventionally…

Small problem…

click his torso…

Select the UVW Shirt…

Change the Alignment from Z to Y…

And the shirt looks normal…

In the following I have dressed his right arm. The procedure was:

Select the arm, right click it and convert it to an Editable Poly…

Enter Polygon level, select all the polygons and set their ID = 1…

Assign a UVW Map, this time with a Cylindrical mapping as this shape best resembles the geometry of the arm. On the model you can see the UVW map is in need of some adjustment.

The UVW cylinder can be adjusted by clicking on the small + sign to the left of the UVW name.

Underneath is a Gizmo…

Using the UVW Gizmo to rotate and scale, the UVW map has been adjusted…

Now deselect everything…

Using drag and drop the Torso-Dress material is applied to his arm…

The UVW Map Gizmo is used once more – here by rotation - to fine tune the pattern, so it matches his torso…

Additionally you can try out the alignment X Y Z buttons…

His left arm now has got the same treatment…

Notice that sometimes things just do not look right, even though you have done everything correctly.

Remember to deselect everything when you want to check the looks of your work.

If something looks strange even when deselected, you must look for errors in your setup. This calls for detective work and methodology, as the there are many spots where settings could be wrong.

Try to apply your material on other items (the test boxes we did earlier) to filter out the error.

Some times it works to save your file, close and reopen it.

When working with 3ds Max you spend a lot of time tweaking and testing.

Getting routine will speed up your work…

Now his head needs some treatment…

We will construct a new material for this purpose:

Copy the Giraffe material to a new slot and enlarge this (page 17)…

This way we will reuse its settings…

Rename the material Head…

Locate the small M in the Diffuse zone and click on it…

Click on the path to the Giraffe.jpg image and replace it with LEGO-head.jpg…

Click the Go to Parent button to return to top level…

Click on his head to make it active and convert it to an Editable Poly…

Set the polygons ID to 1…

Attach a UVW Map as shown. Use X, Y and Z to align…

Verify that its Map Channel = 1

Drag and drop the enlargement on his head…

Deselect his head to take a proper look…

Use the UVW map’s Gizmo to rotate and move the map so it fits like this…

Done with fashion and hairdressing…

Time for a snapshot…

Go to wireframe and unhide the layers with the study, camera and lights…

Go in 4-View mode and make the Camera view the active one…

Done with fashion and hairdressing…

Time for a snapshot…

Go to wireframe and unhide the layers with the study, camera and lights…

Go in 4-View mode and make the Camera view the active one…

I opened the Rendered Frame Window, (under the Rendering menu, remember?) and shot this picture, using the settings from the VISUALIZATION OF THE LEGO MAN tutorial…

I have so far only touched a few of the many parameters in the Material Editor …

You will learn a lot by doing your own experiments and use the Help (F1) in 3ds Max…