Gamasutra.com - Completely Eliminate Texture Seams with 3dsMax


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By Peter Kojesta
[Author's Bio]
Gamasutra
October 19, 2006

Completely Eliminate Texture Seams with 3dsMax

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Completely Eliminate Texture Seams with 3dsMax

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In today’s competitive game market, top quality art gives your game a distinctive advantage. A huge problem in the world of game art is texture seams. They break up the continuity of your texture, and also detract from the realism of your model. Even though the technology to eliminate this problem exists, it seems many folks do not take advantage of it. Even though there are several applications that allow one to paint directly on a model, they are often lacking in control and quality. As such, these programs will not be the topic of this discussion. Instead we will focus on more prevalent tools such as 3D Studio max and Adobe Photoshop. Truly this is all you need to completely eliminate seems. The process may seem detailed, but in practice it takes less than 4 minutes to do the whole thing. Read on to find out how!

Ever since the inclusion of the ‘Render to texture’ feature, 3d studio Max has had a powerful tool for artist who wish to combat texture seams. This tutorial will demonstrate how to use ‘render to texture’ in conjunction with multiple UVW channels to eliminate texture seams once and for all. It’s simple, it’s effective, and the results are truly amazing. Let’s get to it!

Below is a model of an Ottoman soldier created for our client Kacaj Interactive. We’re going to concentrate on the shoulder area since this is typically a point where seams appear. Although the seam is hard to spot, it still disrupts the continuity of the model.

We’re going to create our own style of projection map. The outcome is such that you will always have a planar UV map on the exact section you’re editing. This gives you the full control of the Photoshop tools and the power of the 3d Studio Max UV mapping system.

Step1: Place an Edit Mesh or Edit Poly modifier on your model so you can get at the polygons. Then, select the polygons on both sides of the seam.

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