Model and Texture a Water Tower in 3ds Max – Day 2

Model and Texture a Water Tower in 3ds Max – Day 2

on Jun 18th 2010 with 36 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In this 2-day tutorial, Chris Tate will be guiding you through the process of modelling and texturing an old water tower model using 3ds Max. Whilst day 1 covered the modelling of the tower, day 2 will take you through the UVing, texturing and rendering process.


Video 1

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Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.


Video 2

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Video 3

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Video 4

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Video 5

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Video 6

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Video 7

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Video 8

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This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 1.

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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

A long time Cgtuts+ author, Chris has recently moved into the role of co-editor at Cgtuts+. Chris has nearly a decade of experience working with 3D studio Max and has authored many in depth tutorials for Cgtuts+ as well as other websites. A generalist by definition, Chris spends most of his time modeling, but has many years of experience in the area's of UVMapping, Texturing, Lighting and Rendering. On rare occasions when he's not wasting away in front of his computer, Chris enjoys playing hockey, skateboarding, watching movies and playing games. You can find more of his work over at christateonline.com.  

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Discussion 36 Comments

  1. Wassim says:
    June 18, 2010 at 5:10 am

    Hi, realy impressive and easy to follow tutorial, as always, chris, you ruled :D

    Reply
  2. Vonster says:
    June 18, 2010 at 9:16 am

    Oh ye babe, good stuff, i didnt dl yet, but m sure it rocks

    Reply
  3. Abdullah says:
    June 18, 2010 at 9:35 am

    I ‘ve always struggled with texturing, but you simplify it in a way that goes into the head :) keep it up and thanks a lot for the time you spent making these wonderful tuts.

    Reply
  4. Kai says:
    June 18, 2010 at 9:47 am

    looks amazing …. keep going chris…

    btw missing your brother ben tutorials…

    Reply
  5. haqzaf says:
    June 18, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    Hi,

    My UV UNWRAP progress.

    http://haqzaf.deviantart.com/?loggedin=1#/d2s3dum

    I removed cross beams from tower structure.UV unwrap result were not smooth.
    I’ll follow day 2 tutorials for preparing to texture this model.

    Reply
  6. WebGuide4U says:
    June 18, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    step by step guide on explaining everything is good, really a cool tutorial out there thanks for the share

    Reply
  7. Lohit says:
    June 19, 2010 at 7:56 am

    We miss u ben !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  8. Ant Gray says:
    June 19, 2010 at 8:31 am

    UV unwrapping is still hard to understand for me, I need to practice more.

    You can copy layers in Photoshop with alt+drag, it’s faster and placed near layer, not at center of document.

    Reply
    • Jerome Cyr says:
      June 19, 2010 at 6:18 pm

      Exactly what I was thinking!

      Great tutorial, I really enjoy all the little tips and tricks.

      Are most of your technique applicable when making low poly models for game use (Source engine)? You work with fairly big textures but Source engine is limited and it’s recommended to use 1024×1024. Do you think it is still possible to achieve somewhat the same result as you under that constraint?

      Also one more question: Do you recommend using unfold mapping? In which case? My max is newer version and the pelt tools are slightly different from yours. I can’t get the edit pelt map/ relax process right :(

      Thanks again!

      Reply
  9. Neeraj says:
    June 20, 2010 at 7:35 am

    thanks for this tut frn…..by following ur tuts i got a chance to improve my skills n techniques in max….thnx once again…..n i just wanna ask that in future will u post ur girl modelling tutorial in which ur planning for riggging also…..????

    Reply
  10. BHANU says:
    June 25, 2010 at 6:14 am

    Fantastic turorial……..very Helpful

    thanx for sharing………….!!

    Reply
  11. Irmantas says:
    June 30, 2010 at 11:30 am

    The best tutorials ever. I learned a lot from them : thank you ;)

    Reply
  12. Jerome Cyr says:
    July 1, 2010 at 2:40 am

    I finally finished my model and got it inside a game editor (Source Engine) This is a low poly version made from your tutorial.

    ~1300 polygons

    http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/9264/watertoweringame.jpg

    I still need to add specular map but after that I’m done ( I won’t go into bump/normal map )

    Thanks you for your great tutorials, I learned a lot!

    Reply
    • Leo M. says:
      July 2, 2010 at 3:15 pm

      Good job Jerome, that looks great! I’ve finished the modeling and UV parts all thats left is texturing, thanks for the tutorial Chris!

      Reply
  13. Fred says:
    July 5, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    Nice job Jerome.

    Coincidentally I was thinking about the same. Follow the tut, make a low poly version of the tower low poly and import in Marmoset, UDK or Source! :-)

    PS: Chris, thanks again for another great tutorial mate. I followed the RPG one and learned a lot from you!

    Reply
  14. Moe says:
    July 13, 2010 at 4:36 am

    Till now, its a great tutorial!
    I´m finish with day 1 and i want to start with the day 2 unwrapping part but
    the videos doesnt work. Is there any other side i can visit to watch the tutorial?

    Thanks and Salute,
    Moe

    Reply
    • Matt Brealey says:
      July 13, 2010 at 10:25 am

      Hi Moe,

      Sorry to hear you’re having trouble. I’ve just checked the files here and both the flash videos and the downloads seem to be working fine. If you could try again and let me know if you’re still having trouble I’ll chase up the issue!

      Thanks,

      Matt

      Reply
  15. mmar says:
    July 18, 2010 at 8:41 am

    Hi
    i have a big problem with my UVs
    need some help pls

    http://www.mmarker.de/misc/prob.jpg

    thx
    mmar

    Reply
  16. stephsteph says:
    August 5, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    Wow! very good tutorial, as usual!
    it’s clear, well detailed, easy to follow : “net et précis”!
    keep going!!

    Reply
  17. Johnny B. says:
    September 13, 2010 at 4:33 pm

    Thank you very much for the good tuts. You helped me soooooooo much with this.
    Best regards

    Reply
  18. Evgeny says:
    October 11, 2010 at 4:30 am

    Hi, Chris!

    I just complited unwrapping my tower and start place the unw-parts in small little box in “Edit UVWs” window..

    And I have a question: why should I find room to all unw-parts in this little box in the bottom left corner? Why not in the big blue area?

    Reply
    • Jeremy says:
      November 5, 2010 at 4:38 am

      Because that “little box” in the bottom corner is where 3DS Max looks to find the texture you so painstakingly created.

      Reply
  19. Alex says:
    May 20, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    Hey

    I’ve finished adding the wood in photoshop but when I wanted to apply the psd file on the tower as a material it just applies a brighter standard grey material. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

    Reply
    • Chris Tate says:
      May 21, 2011 at 2:15 am
      Author

      Hey Alex,

      Did you try turning on the “Show Map In Viewport” option for the Diffuse map? You can do so by clicking on the little checkered cube icon, right above the material’s name box. (see image below.)

      http://cgtuts.s3.amazonaws.com/169_Max_WaterTower/Show-in-viewport.jpg

      If that still doesn’t work, then it might be a ram issue. I’m pretty sure I was using a 4K map in the tutorial, which is extremely large. So you could try shrinking it down in Photoshop to 2K (2048×2048) and see if that helps. Another option would be saving out the texture in another format such as .jpg which will give you a much smaller file for Max to have to load :)

      Hope this helps
      Cheers!

      Reply
  20. Alex says:
    May 21, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    Thanks a lot Chris. You we’re right. The UV image was too big and scaling it to 2K helped.

    Cheers!

    Reply
  21. jon rios says:
    May 27, 2011 at 11:08 am

    im having a huge problem. everytime i attempt to unwrap the top of the tower the UV’s get distorted everytime i try to relax them…any help?

    Reply
  22. j says:
    May 31, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    i cant create the maps for the tower using UV Layout. I watched the other tuts, such as the mail box but i cant figure it out they don’t turn out correct??

    Reply
  23. James says:
    July 23, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    Hey Chris,

    Thanks for the great tutorials. I can’t for the life of me get roof cone to unwrap without it distorting. Do you have any guidance on how I can do this please?

    Thanks

    Reply
  24. David says:
    August 5, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    Really nice tutorial!

    I used the same technique for unwrapping and every time I do a close-up render of my model in the view port, the texture gets blurred.

    The texture size is like around 2k and I scaled it but every time it is blurred while doing a close-up! Is this normal when unwrapping? Because you rendered it from a mid-ranged shot but suppose you want to render really close… Please help.

    Thanks

    Reply
  25. majid says:
    November 5, 2011 at 5:59 am

    tnx man you make a realy good tutorial.

    chris can you put just the model for download?
    i realy need it beacuse i want to exercise the texture part..

    tnx a lot

    Reply
  26. Luke says:
    January 7, 2012 at 8:29 pm

    I completed the model fine, great tutorial. I tried to start your UV Unwrapping tutorial, but I came across a few hitches. Firstly, when I select the top face, click exp. face to seams and then click pelt, this is what I get

    http://i.imgur.com/fiYrV.jpg

    In your video, your map is squared, while mine looks rotated about 45 degrees. Also, there is no “simulate pelt mapping” button that I can find in 3ds Max 2010. Where would that be or what is the equivelent? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Chris Tate says:
      January 8, 2012 at 9:42 pm
      Author

      Hey Luke,

      Glad you’re liking the tut so far!

      Autodesk overhauled some of the UVMapping tools and interface for Max 2010, and replaced the “Simulate Pelt Mapping” button with “Start Pelt”, but it’s basically the same thing.

      So just hit “Start Pelt”, let it stretch out a bit and then hit “Commit” to get rid of the pelt mapping dialog. It shouldn’t matter If the UV island is still rotated, just straighten it out using the “Rotate” tool and then relax it using the relax tool (Tools>Relax…)

      I’d recommend setting the “Relax By” method to “Face Angles” (in the pulldown) and upping the “Amount” to 1.0. After that just hit the “Start Relax” button a few times, and you should be good to go!

      Cheers!
      Chris

      Reply
      • Luke says:
        January 9, 2012 at 5:12 am

        Thanks :)

        I got all the UV’s mapped and am just about to start laying them out. How do I know what the size of my map is? You mentioned something about a 4k map, and I’ve read about 1k maps. How do I set the scale and size?

        Cheers

  27. Luke says:
    January 9, 2012 at 8:29 pm

    Sorry to ask so many questions. I pushed forward even though the UV checker things were massive. I’ve done the huge 4096 texture map in Photoshop and have tried to apply it to the mesh. It shows up really really low res for some reason.

    Reply

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