Textures not showing up

[aspireman 5]

When I render my building from Gmax my textures are not showing up. Even in the preview they are notshowing up. No matter what the quality it is either. Any suggestions? A plus, my building does show up in the LE and it appears to be the right size. Now for the texture. I'm sure this is a topic else where, sorry for the repeats.

[RichManSCTV 14]

It could be corrupt, or it was not saved properly.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Nope, it's a bug within the Gmax software itself... happens to a lot of people. Sometimes textures just don't show up, leaving a flat grey colour in their place. The only solution is to keep previewing/ exporting/ merging into a new scene/ editing bitmaps/ editing textures/ whatever until you get lucky and the problem decides to go away. Or you could just get Max.

[harishna 847]

Are you talking about some textures or all the textures? Is the checkered box option slected for your materials?

[aspireman 5]

Are you talking about some textures or all the textures? Is the checkered box option slected for your materials?

All the textures.

Nope, it's a bug within the Gmax software itself... happens to a lot of people. Sometimes textures just don't show up, leaving a flat grey colour in their place. The only solution is to keep previewing/ exporting/ merging into a new scene/ editing bitmaps/ editing textures/ whatever until you get lucky and the problem decides to go away. Or you could just get Max.

Yes, it is all gray.

[aspireman 5]

Ok, the textures of older models I've made show up on the preview. If I make a new model and texture it with the texture I want or a different texture they still don't show up on the preview. What's up?

[harishna 847]

have you pressed the little checkered box in your materials (textures)?

[aspireman 5]

have you pressed the little checkered box in your materials (textures)?

Yes. The textures show up on the model its self, just not in the preview and after rendering it and seeing it on LE.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

It's strange that you can't get any textures to show up at all...

The problem I'm familiar with usually affects less than 50% of all textures within a scene and usually occurs on one or more zoom/ rotation, but never on the whole lot. My experience was that it was completely random about what textures were replaced with grey and on what zoom or rotation this would happen, but I always got something.

For example on this building (my first BAT actually) you can see that just one texture (on the roof) is replaced with grey on one particular zoom/ rotation, but it can still be seen in place on all others.

Maybe this is something else…

[aspireman 5]

Yeah I get nothing in the preveiw mode, yet my old models work on preview. Reinstall Gmax?

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Yeah, see if that helps. Usually I find these problems are related to the individual scene though, and not the program itself. Reinstalling may not fix your problem.

Have you tried merging one of your new scenes into an older working scene?

[aspireman 5]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79380349@N05/7377993058/

[Amthaak 1,501]

I had this pb when I was using Gmax. It is very frustrating! It was commenting by Odainsaker (the Great!) page 2 of my HKABT thread. Hope it helps.

  Edited June 16, 2012 by Amthaak  

[harishna 847]

Well it seems to me as you are talking about 1 texture, not many, right? I had this problem too when I started, the way I found to circumvent the problem was too create an object and\apply all the textures in my scence to it (one at time) and making sure all the materials had the chekered box (show map in viewport) option selected. I had to do this everytime I wanted to preview or export my model, it is a pain but it kinda worked...However the best solution I found was to move to 3ds max and forget about gmax.

  Edited June 16, 2012 by harishna  

[madhatter106 3,903]

From my experience, it has something to do with gmax - it's just a matter of going back in and reloading the textures. I never use the Material Navigator, and when I do end up accidentally going in there, this is when I usually end up losing some or all of my textures (ie. they "go gray.") I usually texture only using the Material Editor - if I want a texture that is previously applied on another object, I'll use the "picker" to snag it off that object before applying it elsewhere, as that is faster for me and it prevents this problem.

[aspireman 5]

Well it seems to me as you are talking about 1 texture, not many, right? I had this problem too when I started, the way I found to circumvent the problem was too create an object and\apply all the textures in my scence to it (one at time) and making sure all the materials had the chekered box (show map in viewport) option selected. I had to do this everytime I wanted to preview or export my model, it is a pain but it kinda worked...However the best solution I found was to move to 3ds max and forget about gmax.

No, this was just a sample. My main model has at least 12 different textures. I was just showing how even a simple texture didn't even work. 3ds isn't free is it?

[harishna 847]

It is for students...

[cogeo 960]

This is caused by the Material Editor/Navigator. This tool is so buggy that it can screw the whole scene up. Another possible cause is preview renders and exports. Among others, it adds those stupid ..._UserModel_ZnS materials (copies of the originals but instantiated for each Z/R).

To minimise the hassle take the following precautions (while you are working):

- Make backups more frequently; if something goes wrong you will be able to open an older version of your scene, losing only the part of you work since the last bacup, not everything.

- Do not save the scene after exporting (or preview-rendering). Instead, save it BEFORE exporting, then export and reload the scene (or ideally exit gmax) without saving again, no matter if gmax is asking to "save the changes". There are no changes to save, because you had saved the scene before exporting; all you will save now is just garbage.

For instructions on how to repair a corrupt scene (or cleanup/refresh an overworked one), take a look at my post . This not only fixes those gray/beige textures problems, it removes the above said ..._UserModel_ZnS materials too; there is a side-effect though it removes all unassigned materials too.

Hope this helps.

  Edited June 16, 2012 by cogeo  

[aspireman 5]

This is caused by the Material Editor/Navigator. This tool is so buggy that it can screw the whole scene up. Another possible cause is preview renders and exports. Among others, it adds those stupid ..._UserModel_ZnS materials (copies of the originals but instantiated for each Z/R).

To minimise the hassle take the following precautions (while you are working):

- Make backups more frequently; if something goes wrong you will be able to open an older version of your scene, losing only the part of you work since the last bacup, not everything.

- Do not save the scene after exporting (or preview-rendering). Instead, save it BEFORE exporting, then export and reload the scene (or ideally exit gmax) without saving again, no matter if gmax is asking to "save the changes". There are no changes to save, because you had saved the scene before exporting; all you will save now is just garbage.

For instructions on how to repair a corrupt scene (or cleanup/refresh an overworked one), take a look at my post . This not only fixes those gray/beige textures problems, it removes the above said ..._UserModel_ZnS materials too; there is a side-effect though it removes all unassigned materials too.

Hope this helps.

This happens to new models as well.

[aspireman 5]

Well I reinstalled GMax, but for the life of me can't find where to find the download for the BAT. Where would I require it? Link please, thanks much!

[aspireman 5]

HELP!

Ok, this is how I was texturing my items:

Material Editor

New

Standard

Ambient

Bitmap

chose my texture, open

click checkered box

drag texture on to item

edit it from there.

From what I've seen there are multiple ways of adding textures, and I don't know the best way. I checked out how to apply textures on Omnibus and it's completely different than what I do, which worked in the past. I tried it their way on just a box and the texture did show up on the preview. I tried messing around with things on the Material Navigator on the model I'm trying to finish and the textures disappear completely. How do I delete all the textures on my model and start over? I know people are busy with life, I'll try and be patient. Just frustrated.

[madhatter106 3,903]

HELP!

Ok, this is how I was texturing my items:

Material Editor

New

Standard

Ambient

Bitmap

chose my texture, open

click checkered box

drag texture on to item

edit it from there.

From what I've seen there are multiple ways of adding textures, and I don't know the best way. I checked out how to apply textures on Omnibus and it's completely different than what I do, which worked in the past. I tried it their way on just a box and the texture did show up on the preview. I tried messing around with things on the Material Navigator on the model I'm trying to finish and the textures disappear completely. How do I delete all the textures on my model and start over? I know people are busy with life, I'll try and be patient. Just frustrated.

Like I said before in my prior post, the only time I encounter this problem is when I deal with the Material Navigator. All my work is done via the Material Editor; when I open up the Navigator and start fussing around, that's often when the textures decide to depart. But they're not lost, you just need to select them via the "pick" tool in the Editor and reload their maps. They're there, and they're on your different objects in gmax - gmax just is too wonked out to show them for whatever silly reason.

I hardly ever venture into the Navigator, and when I do, it's clunky and leads to textures "going gray" aka AWOL in the preview render. So my best advice would be to open the scene where you're having the problem, open the Material Editor and start selecting objects via the pick tool, and then reload their maps. Then check the render again and see if they've returned - more often than not, when I've done this, the "problem" goes away...

As for dragging textures on to the objects, I'm used to doing it a little more elegantly - when I have the texture loaded in the Material Editor, I select the UVW-mapped object in the perspective window and then I click apply in the Editor. But that's just my workflow normalcy...

[aspireman 5]

Yeah, I think I know what I've been doing wrong. I've been using the "Ambient" instead of "Diffuse". Seems to be working now, I hope. I'm going to start over fresh and hope that works out. I learn new things on the way and my model will look cleaner after I'm done and be easier to texture.

[DecodingInspire 12]

Hmm... I have the problem, that I see the Preview, but when I am going to add some materials with bitmaps, The building is every time only grey. for example I take a texture (bmp) from an solarpanel and i take this on the building it is grey. Only the Colors are working, I do not know why, it is really...

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Working with gmax I guess. Make sure the "Show bitmap" button is hit and activated in the materical editor, else you will end up with only a grey building.