Creating Materials

[tgrawe]

I am new to the rendering arena and I am learning as I go. So here is my long winded question. I am having an issue creating my own materials in 3ds using the Indigo Main "starting block". I have also used Indigo materials off of the website, swapped out the .PNG files that were in the material and put my .PNG materials in and when I export into Indigo using Maxigo, the material on the object comes across either as a solid grey materal with no bumps (even though I have added bumps and the .PNG map) or as a solid color that has the same color as my .PNG file. Am I missing something either on the creating the material in 3ds or is there something that I am missing on the exporting out of 3ds into Indigo??? I have had a lot of luck using Indigo Glass and woods, just not with creating my own materials.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. If this question has been posted in the past, I appoligize. I have been trying to search the forum.

Thanks

Tom

[suvakas]

Do you have proper UV coordinates on your models?
Is the material grey in viewport too or only when rendering with Indigo?

[tgrawe]

Not to be dumb, but how do you check the UV coordinates? I can get the window to render in 3DS (see attached 1) but when it goes to indigo it looks like the attached 2. The orange material is supposed to be the orange checkerboard material in attahced 1. Thanks alot for your response. Some days I feel like I've got it, then I don't.

Tom

[suvakas]

Not to be dumb, but how do you check the UV coordinates?

Search for "UVW Map" modifier under Modifiers list and apply it to your model.
You may also press down the "Show map in viewport" button in material editor to get real time feedback in of your texture in Max viewport.

[tgrawe]

Is that the reason why the map is not rendering in Indigo? Attachement2 is the rendering from Indigo. I will try the UVW map modifier. Is that a global change in 3DS, or do I have to apply that to each object seperately? Thanks again for your response. Your program has really openend up another door on my renderings. Thank you!

Tom

[suvakas]

That could be one of the reasons. Your Max screenshot doesn't tell me much cause I can't see if the map is correctly applied inside Max or not. Try to render it with scanline or Mentalray and see if you get the same issue.
Generally only primitives have automatic UV coords. You have to use some sort of UV modifier for everything else.

[tgrawe]

Thanks Suvakas, I've got the textures to come across (see attachment 2). I just have to play around with the maps. Thanks for the direction. It helped me out alot.

Thanks again.

Tom