OK you guys, Ive had a couple of requests for a tut on how to map complex or organic objects. Now some of you will have noticed that in this tut I use a cube. I know this is not a very complex or organic type o shape, but its important that you see the theory and understand how and why it works. Its a whole a lot easier to see it at work on a simple object than a complex one, but you should be able to apply this to your own objects easily.

Now it seems that a few of you dont quite understand this tut. So I'm adding this bit to keep yer happy : ). When you need to unwrap an organic object, you should look for areas of faces that you can detach in small groups. Any faces that lie, more or less, in a flat plane will do. Also note that you can not move the verts when they have been detached and flattened, so the result WILL have gaps in. Sorry about this but it can't be helped. This is, as I see it the closest thet you can get to unwrapped texture co-ord without the use of custom plugins. It does take quite a while to do an organic object, but I feel that the result is worth the effort. I am currently working on a small alien creature, and I will be using this technique to map him. Check back soon (ish!) to see how it looks.... And don't let it get you down : )

But where to start? Lets try the beginning...

You need to understand how texture mapping works, so lets get this bit out of the way first. When you apply a mapping gizmo to an object you are in fact creating a second set of values for every vertex on that object. Most of the time your verts hold their co-ords in space, but when you apply mapping, that also hold the offset from the edge of the bitmap you apply to it. It works on a % basis, i.e. verts at the top left of your object are at 0% of the bimap, verts at the bottom right are 100% and verts in the middle are at 50% of the bitmap. This is why you can put a bitmap of any size on to any object and it gets stretched to fit. Each set of mapping you apply always starts off a new set of texture co-ords, i.e.- if you take a cube and apply a planar map to each side, each side will contain co-ords that start at 0% and finish at 100%. When you stick a bitmap on this object, each side is in fact looking at the same area of the bitmap, and thats why all the sides look the same.

Yeah and?........

Wouldnt it be nice if could get a bitmap that could fold around the corners of the cube. So you would only need to draw one texture, and if it had to line up on the edges it would do so automatically, because thats how you drew it?
"You can You daft fool!" - I hear you cry - "You use spherical mapping!!!"
Ahh, but thats not always the best solution now is it? Spherical mapping pinches your bitmap at the top and bottom, creating distorted areas called singularities. And, because the co-ords are calculated from the centre of the object, faces at a steep angle distort the texture a lot.
What we need is an unwrap!

Drag out old faithful....

Time to draw our friend the cube.....

Build a cube any size, then slap an editmesh modifier on it. Choose the Face sub-object and scroll down until you get to explode. Select all the faces and click the explode button. This will chop the object into lots of smaller objects based on the angle between faces. Now, this works OK for a cube or any boxy object. But if your shape is all round and organic then you will need to select the faces that you want to map and then detach them by hand.

You should have a cube that now looks a bit like this.

Here comes the technical bit..... concentrate..

Some of you may have guessed how this all works by now. Yes, were going to unwrap the object instead of just unwrapping the UV co-ords. IMPORTANT:- Press the animate button NOW. Go to frame 2. Select each object and rotate it so that they all face the same way. Its best if you lay the objects out in a logical fashion for drawing on.

If you lay it out like this I will be very impressed!

Now for the cunning....

SECOND IMPORTANT BIT:- Now turn the animate button OFF. Select all the objects and apply some UVW mapping. Now there is a bug in Max that does not let you fit the mapping gizmo to more than one object. So, go straight into sub-object mode and rotate and move the gizmo so that it fits over all of the shapes. Try and get it as accurate as possible.

If all has gone to plan, when you go back to frame 1 you should see this.... If, on the other hand, all the mapping gizmos go all small and weird then you left the animate button on while applying the mapping.

Whats you pleasure sir?....

Go back to frame 2 and call up the Mkey utility (if you havent go it then get it now from the plugins section). Or if you like pain then call up the track editor. Delete all animation for this frame. The flat cube now goes back to being 3D, but all the mapping is still there. Pick one object and collapse it stack (this is to get to the attach multiple button). Attach this to all the other parts of the cube. Go into sub-object mode and select all the verts and weld them. Because 3DS Max can share texture verts all the mapping remains intact, and your object is exactly the same as it was before you started.
If you use the Unwrap object texture plugin (by peter watje) you will get a bitmap out that looks like this......

You can now draw onto this and all the line will match up to the edges on your object. But just to see if it has worked apply any old bitmap as a texture on see it bend........

The bitmap now bends around the sides of the cube instead of lining up with them. This technique works very well, we use it at work now all the time. Its also quite quick, the slowest part is the rotating of all the separate objects. If anyone has a plugin that could help or a better way then please let me know : )

Lots of thanx to Big Dave "percy" Percivil for the final piece of the jigsaw : )