Hi

Im new to 3ds max and trying to import a downloaded model to experiment with (but its all white).

The model i import is in .obj

There is also .mtl and .mesh and plenty of .png images (textures) in the same folder

Must i set up something prior to importing? Do i need to apply each .png manually (isnt the point that someone did this already).

Thanks for your help (yes im a noob)

Erik

Without seeing the content of the .obj or knowing more about the provided model, I can only make a few educated guesses.

The "hard part" the creator did included the actual modeling, the UV mapping for texture projections, the texture painting/creation, etc. All that work should still be preserved in the .obj data and .png files so long as there are entries that match up vertices to uv coordinates. Try applying the diffuse texture to the model and see if it's already projected correctly onto the geometry.

(incidentally, you DO have textured-view turned on in your viewport, right?)

Edit: forgot to mention, the .mtl file might very well have the various texture assignments stored in it, you might skip a few steps by applying that material to the mesh.

Uh? So i cannot simply import the obj file and expect the model to be textured?

Why save a model in obj extension (as most models on the internet seems to be) if its not a complete model? I mean all the data is there but it must be manually assembled. Seems unpractical if you work with many models.

Note, this seems to be the case with all obj saved models i find (different authors, homepages etc). Always a obj file and in the same folder .mtl and some image files. It seems they already did the work of figuring out which textures to go where.

Like I said, I'm not familiar with the content of this particular .obj file, so I can't give you a more definite answer than that. If it's the kind of thing you can share, I'll look and see what's contained in the format.

In relation to the work required to make/wrap/texture the model, a few assembly steps is trivial.

this one for ex

http://thefree3dmodels.com/stuff/characters/hayes/14-1-0-3959

there is a blue download under the big picture of the man.

thanks for your help

Yea, everything's there that you need: vertices mapped to texture coordinates and faces comprised of those vertices. The materials are even referenced in the .obj, so the .mtl file is important and relates your texture images to the obj information. Can you load a .mtl file into 3dsmax to create materials? From the looks of it, if you can create the materials and then apply them to the obj model, all the textures will map correctly to the geometry. However,I use Blender so I'm genuinely unsure on that one. Maybe a Max user can speak more specifically to this instance.

tl;dr: You should just have to play connect the dots with the resources, all the mapping has been done for you.

it seems the data should be in the mtl file yes. But importing the obj (or 3ds file, same problem) doesnt not import the texture data even if the mtl file is specified in the import screen.

Plz someone who knows 3ds max, how is this supposed to work?

Thanks

Erik