No-tile bitmpap shading

[szbztz]

Hello,

I'm new to 3ds Max and I have a problem wrapping a simple bitmap image to a sphere. I go to diffuse color, assign a bitmap but the problem is when I uncheck U and V tilings the bitmap does not inherit the lighting and shading option from the sphere (the sphere color is set to white).

[szbztz]

Anyone please? How can I make the image on sphere 2 blend so i can not the the edges of it?

[FlyingVFX]

Something like this help?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx_zuZQUxvo

[szbztz]

Hello and thanks for the reply! Not quite! I followed the tutorial and as you can see from the screenshot 2 file the end result is much better now but the edges are still visible.

I even tried "cheating" and instead of applying white diffuse color to the sphere "behind" the mickey object I saved a pure white image in photoshop and applied it as a diffuse color tiled texture but it's the same. Tried to turn off "cast shadows" in properties...

[joelgray]

Is the texture self illuminated?  It looks like it is in your original post.

Try modifying the texture into a black and white image in photoshop, then use that image as a mask.

[CAMedeck]

What you are posting are just screen captures of the viewport.  Render the sphere, and see what the result is.  That's what's important, not how it's viewed.  Nitrous may be great, but it isn't perfect.  Not every material will display exactly as it will render.

[szbztz]

I tried rendereing but the result is the same as in the viewport. I don't know what you mean by "self illuminated" joelgray. As I mentioned I'm new to max here. I'll try that "black and white" thingy and post how it went.

[Doughboy12]

Pro Tip #543782:

When someone uses termonoligy that you don't understand....use the GOOGLE. It takes less time and keeps the conversation going in the right direction.

[szbztz]

About the termonoligy Doughboy12. Yes, you are right and no joelgray, the image is not self illuminated. I also tried converting to grayscale (if black and white is what you were referring to) and trying in mask mode to no avail.

To be honest I'm bit frustrated here. I have to do bunch of research to wrap a simple image on an object seamlessly with the best 3d software whereas it should be a BASIC and obvious thing to do. The image background is RGB #FFFFFF and the object diffuse color is RGB #FFFFFF so can anyone tell me why there is a difference in shading when in theory the image lies on the exact surface as the object?

[Steve_Curley]

Probably down to Gamma Correction on the imported image which won't be there if the "background" white is just a diffuse colour.

Try Customise > Preferences > Gamm&LUT > On with a value of 1.0. That way the bitmap won't be gamma corrected and should match the background white. (I think, not something I generally deal with).

[CAMedeck]

The previously linked youtube video showing the Composite workflow should have worked.  If the Gamma change doesn't fix things, maybe archive your model (in the Save As flyout of Max, zips the file with all maps) and post it up here for us to take a look.  There has to be something simple that needs to be tweaked, because, like you said, it shouldn't be this difficult.  But we all overlook something too obvious once in a while, even seasoned veterans.

[darawork]

Edit the bitmap to be same size as the ball?

Circumference of a sphere: 2πR

Half that, and that's your height.

Open photoshop, make a white backgrounded image of the above height... paste your bitmap in the middle. Merge layers, save as a jpg. Use that as your UVW map with tiling set to 1, and real world map size turned on.

Simples?

[Steve_Curley]

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@CAMedeck wrote:

The previously linked youtube video showing the Composite workflow should have worked.

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It certainly should, but if not let's try a slightly different workflow.

1) Create a small image, doesn't need to be too big - 128*128 should be more than enough (possibly much smaller as it's a single colour image), with the same colour value as the background of your main image (white) and save it.

2) Create a Standard Material, Composite Map in the Diffuse slot, the new image as the map. Apply the Material to your Sphere.
As both the background and foreground are bitmaps this should negate any Gamma issues.

3) Create a new Layer in the Composite map with your original image in the Map slot. Double-click the bitmap to access its parameters.

4) Scroll down to the Bitmap Parameters rollout. On the right, in the Crop/Place section, click Place, Apply, View Image. In the resulting dialog move and size the image into position. This method has the advantage that the viewports will update on mouse up, so while not totally interactive it's much easier than having to re-render every time to see your changes.
Note that there are NO changes necessary to UVs, Map Channels or Tiling. While the basic premise will work on other objects you may need to deal with mapping as (on a box for example) the image will get repeated on the other sides - this is where UVs, Map Channels and the Multi SubObject Material will likely be needed.