Hi,

I'm trying to work out how to uv and texture a race track in Max. I've built a simple track to experiment on (using line and sweep).



I've been trying out the graphite modeling tools - I want the faces highlighted in light blue to be the road, the ones above to be mountains and the lower faces to be mountains too.

All faces would be using the same map. I am selecting the polygons in edit poly, then adding a uvw map (face map) and unwrap uvw to rotate/tweak them. I've managed to texture one section like this.

If I then select the next set of faces, I can get the texture to appear, but when I go back to edit poly in the stack (to select another set of polys), the UVs are lost.

I then tried converting to editable poly rather than selecting this from the stack. This works in that I can now create and keep a texture for more than one element of the track (ie road and mountains)...BUT...by converting to editable poly, I lose line and sweep in my stack. I want to keep these as I may need them to edit the track later.

So, how do I texture different parts of the track without losing line and sweep?

Instead of converting to editable poly, apply a "edit poly" modifier to the stack. This will enable you to manipulate the spline while still being able to change the UV's above the stack. As long as you don't add or remove the geometry below edit poly the UV's will hold up.

You could also try skinning or skinwrap, the collapsed mesh to the spline so it moves around as if it was the spline but is an editable poly object.

Textools has a spline unwrapping tool, ideal for roads, tubes etc.

The answer you're looking for is near the beginning of the second video.
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/aut...ry-in-3ds-max/

Thanks for the replies.

I have been trying out loft from the tutorial, it was pretty helpful and does seem to solve the problem of editing the original line.

I need to bake lighting onto my uvs, so I am using face mapping rather than just the default mapping in loft. I have been adding an edit poly to the stack as suggested. I'm ending up with a huge stack once I have textured different sections of the track - is this a normal workflow? Is there any way to avoid having such a huge stack, or at least to make it more manageable? And does the stack have a limit?

Also, I've noticed if I go back to any of the edit poly modifiers lower down the stack, this causes irreversible change to the uvs. I cannot just control Z to get back to where I was which is a little worrying

Is your engine capable of two sets of UVs?

Something I've seen mentioned a lot in other threads (take with a pinch of salt as it were, I've not tried this myself) is to bake two sets, one for lighting (and decals like treadmarks etc) and one to make a nicely optimised tiling road/grass texture.