(Solved) 3Ds Max UV mapping and proportion issues

[Kaschperl 92]

Hello folks!

I have decided to advance into the unknown lands of asset creation, and everything has gone very well so far. But now I'm stuck when it comes to UV mapping.

As I said in the title I'm using 3Ds Max. I've mapped the model, created a texture and even got to the point where the model shows in the viewports with the textures applied. And that's what the problem is, the program seems to be acting completely backwards when it comes to mapping (or I am :P). I've watched some videos that show the exact procedure I have to follow to create a diffuse map in Max and import the models to CSL, which is the following:

Starting Point: I have a model that has all parts collapsed into a single mesh.

1. Select the model and apply the "Unwrap UVW" Modifier.

2. Pick the "Unwrap UVW" sub-option "Polygon" and open the UV Editor

3. Pick "Mapping">"Flatten Mapping" and map the model parts to where they are supposed to be on the texture (I set the texture I had already done to be the background).

4. Close the UV Editor and choose "Render">"Render to Texture", configure the settings and render the texture to where the model file is saved.

5. This is where it never does what I expect it to do. In the 2 videos I watched you would now edit the texture you just output to how it's supposed to be in the end (in my case I just put the texture I prepared before over the one I got from rendering and overwrite the file). Then, in the videos, once you went back to your Max window the texture would be applied to the model with the changes you just made to the texture.

For me that simply doesn't happen, and I have no idea why. I've tried it forwards and backwards, upside down, nothing happens. One time I got an error message saying a file was missing. That missing file was the exact same texture I just rendered to a folder. I then chose the option in the error window to browse for the image manually, did so and I think that was when I got my texture model to show up in Max. However, I tried to reproduce that from an older save but I couldn't.

6. After I got the textured model I proceded as the videos showed by going to "Utilities">"More">"UVW Remove" and clicking "Remove Materials".

7. Now I went ahead and tried to import the model into CSL.

I loaded my model (with the texture .png file named like the model file with a "_d" attached to it and located in the "import" folder along with the .fbx file) in the asset editor and it shows up - not just without textures, the rotation being wrong (model on its side) and the overall scale being 10 times too small, but also strangely stretched out along the z axis, approximately factor 1.5 I'd say. Which is very odd because all the untextured models I imported before for testing purposes had the rotation-axis-thing and the general out-of-scale problem, but the proportions were right and I could easily fix both issues. It looked exactly as I wanted it, just without textures.

 

Here are two screenshots I took. The first one is how my model appears in Max, in the second one you can see how weirdly it's squished in the asset editor. The third one is the texture map I use, 512x512, nothing special. Don't judge the textures, I know they still need some work!

I don't know what's wrong and if it's my own fault, but I spent the whole day looking for solutions and can't find any. I'd really appreciate advice from someone who maybe knows a bit more about 3Ds Max than I do! Also feel free to tell me if you have any tips or comments on how I do things and how it could be done better

[Darf 1,439]

I got terribly confused aswell at the start (it's a lot to get your head around), but first off all, you can forget about steps 5-7. You already have a texture and mapped the uwvs. You don't need to do this a second time around, unless you want rendered shadows on your texturemap. You can just go ahead and select your model > export selected and make sure you select FBX 2014, units automatic and Y up. I always have to fiddle with the size aswell in C:S, but it's always a factor 100.

[Kaschperl 92]

Thanks so much for your reply! It was that bally y axis up option that prevented the textures from working. That's a big step for me! Now I have the model loaded in CSL with textures showing, but the proportions problem persists: I still get squeezed house geometry like in screenshot number 2.

Also, as long as I can't get the views in the modeling program to show the textures it's very hard to check whether the texture is mapped correctly and if it looks good. Maybe there's an option I haven't checked among the millions that Max provides. I basically just need to know how I can tell Max to use that and that texture as a uv map and display it on the model, because in the whole mess I couldn't really figure out what caused it to know which texture to use the one time I actually got it to display textures. I've also seen other prorgams like Maya that let you import a prepared uv in the first place and then allow you to map the textures, displaying changes in real-time. If there's a way to do it that way in Max that would help me a lot!

[Darf 1,439]

I don't have a clue about those, mb upload your model + textures so we can have a look? My guess is it's something in the export options, but not sure what's causing that. I also don't know what you mean by your other comment?!? Just apply the texture, tick on the visibility in the viewport option and map your texture?

[Kaschperl 92]

Thanks, I can upload the file for you to have a look at tomorrow because at the moment I'm not home. About the second comment, yeah, it might just be a viwport option I don't know because I haven't used Max before, might have another look at that. I also just realized I didn't use "export selected" as you suggested but rather exported the whole thing without selecting the model, maybe that causes some problems. I'll try doing it the other way. Thanks for your advice again by the way! I hope we can get this working soon and that it's not just something trivial I'm too blind to see.

[boformer 3,169]

No idea how it works in Max, but in Blender you have to apply all object transformations before exporting (scale, rotation, position).

[Darf 1,439]

You just convert the mesh to a editable mesh, that applies all modifiers. Could be the case for Kaschperl. Since I usually model in Sketchup I never think about it.

[Kaschperl 92]

Hey, sorry for not posting earlier. I think you won't have to bother looking into my model files, things are working out better now. Applying the textures isn't a problem any more; I've decided to start over and modeled 2 cars which both work perfectly fine in game. About the first house I made, no idea what went wrong there, It's still broken. I'm going to try another building soonish and I hope I won't come across those problems again. Anyways, as I already said, thanks for your help, I really had no clue about the export settings!

[Kaschperl 92]

Sorry for bumping this thread, but it looks like I found the solution to the proportions issue and I think it should be on here in case anyone experiences a similar problem:

In the hierarchy panel under Pivot -> Adjust Transform there's a category titled "Reset:" with two buttons in it: "Transform" and "Scale". Hitting the "Scale" button and re-exporting the model did the trick for me -  simple enough!

However I still don't know the cause of this problem, so I can't tell what (not) to do in order to avoid it. Since other people don't seem to have this issue with 3Ds Max models I'm starting to believe that I'm just doing weird things that noone else does