Above is a picture of some level geometry I've been working on. Now due to the way I built it (Extruding faces outwards to get the right shape then slicing the faces to build walls etc.) textures do not map well on to this. I think UV mapping should solve this but I don't know how to UV map something like this. The tanks and cubes on the map can be ignored, they are separate objects which I will UV Map on their own. Any help would be greatly appreciated. EDIT: Oh and I'm using 3DS Max 8 so if theres a way of doing it in 3DS Max rather than a separate program that's good too.

are you actually applying a uv map modifier and modifying the uv map type and size/shape?
just select the geometry you want to uv map, go to the modifier tab, go to uvw mapping, box mapping should work for most of your geometry, then double click on the uvw map modfier name inthe modifer list untill its yellow, then use the move, rotate and scale gizmos to alter the uv coords to work with your geometry.
however if you want to go more complex you can also go to edit poly and select invididual faces and apply a uvw map modifier to just that face, you cna also do uvw unwrapping for more complex geometry.

Thanks it works. But I can only see the results if I have the UVW Map modifier selected. Will the maps still work when I export it to a DirectX .X model? Or will it just use the default mapping?

Quote: Original post by Dom_152
Thanks it works. But I can only see the results if I have the UVW Map modifier selected. Will the maps still work when I export it to a DirectX .X model? Or will it just use the default mapping?

if .x exports texture coords with the rest of the model (it does it believe) then yes.
glad it helped, feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

Hey, you said I can do UV mapping per face right? Well I applied the UVW Map modifier to the whole level and then selected the face I wanted to texture. I applied the material then used the UVW modifier to get it tiling correctly. But then all the other textures on different faces had the same UV Tiling properties applied to them. Basically some faces will need the texture tiled more than others how can I do this?

EDIT: I just realised I can do this in the Material Editor but if theres another way of doing it please let me know as having a different material for each different tile setting doesn't seem practical :S

you must use several uv maps, the best way to do it is to have the hole scene slipted.

Or you can use an uv map in a selected polygon, arrange the texture/material convert it again to editablepoly/mesh and it will keep the uv set, and then select another face/polygon, and repeate the process, until you have the hole level textured. This is the best approach

Thanks, that sounds good.

"Or you can use an uv map in a selected polygon, arrange the texture/material convert it again to editablepoly/mesh and it will keep the uv set, and then select another face/polygon, and repeate the process, until you have the hole level textured. This is the best approach"

I can't do that. I can't seem to just convert one face into a seprate editable poly. It just converts the whole level.

Quote: Original post by Dom_152
"Or you can use an uv map in a selected polygon, arrange the texture/material convert it again to editablepoly/mesh and it will keep the uv set, and then select another face/polygon, and repeate the process, until you have the hole level textured. This is the best approach"

I can't do that. I can't seem to just convert one face into a seprate editable poly. It just converts the whole level.

say i have a box, it has 6 sides. i select the box, convert to editable poly, using the face tool i select one side. i apply a texture to that selected side, i go to the modifiers list and apply a uvw map. then i right click and convert to editbale poly, go to the face select tool and select another face, apply texture to face, then apply a uvw map modifier, then i right lcikc and convert to editbale poly.
now after this you should have a box with 6 sides, and 2 sides each with their own unique uvw mapping. this is what we're were talking about.

OK thanks this seems to be working well. Although sometimes I will texture the walls. Then do the floor with a different texture. After doing some other things I'll notice that the walls are now textured with the floor texture :S