Transparent Decal texture map

[michaelVF8MS]

I'm trying to create the effect of cut vinyl letters on a cylindrical pipe. In other apps I've used, the text--in its proper color--is placed in the diffuse channel (or analogous name) and a map with white text on a black background is placed in the opacity/transparency channel. It is then told not to tile. This can go on a thin, curved "C" shaped object that closely wraps the cylinder. Because everything is transparent where the black background is, the effect is to have colored text on the object. I've not been able to do this with the Physical Material version, only with the legacy Standard Scanline version--which has blessedly straightforward controls. I uncheck the "tile" boxes and the "mirror" boxes, but it is still tiling? What? Also, I'm using a UVW Map on the object to try and place the map, but it does not have a tiling control (!?) I'm sure I'm doing something wrong since this is such a common practice, but I can't find a single tutorial that explains how to do it. Can someone let me know: which Material to use from the Slate layout and where I should route my wires from my two bitmap images. Or does 3DS have a different way to achieve a decal look. BTW, I've tried the V-Ray decal and that is not really what I'm looking for.

Thanks,

MHBrown

[michaelVF8MS]

I suppose making a simple decal is harder than I thought. I've been trying to figure it out all day and have nothing to show for it. Here are two screen shots of what I'm doing. The wired Physical Material has the two maps that I use in other rendering apps and they are in the channels where I usually put them. They do not, however, create transparency nor does it appear on the object. I've tried all the UVW plug-ins, but I need to get an image to work with first. Can someone tell me what is wrong with my reasoning here and explain how to make a simple decal? I don't want the background to be a part of the decal, by the way. I need to edit the mapping of the background separate from the decal. You can see in the Physical Material thumbnail that it is not working since the white background should show transparency. I appreciate any help in this since I cannot find any tutorial that isn't really convoluted, using nearly a dozen wired windows.

Thanks for any help! 3DS Max 2023

MHBrown

[CiroCardoso3v]

Any chance you could save that object the textures so we could have a look?