Applying Text and Logos to 3d models

[pxcable]

Does anyone know the best way to apply text/logo's/Symbols to 3d models?

If drawing them in photoshop is an option that's my favoured program.

Also, what if you want a specified Pantone colour for the logo and buttons in a model - What's the best way to add the exact colour?

The attached screen shot is to show where I need to apply a logo.

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[10DSpace · Accepted solution]

@pxcable 

Since you are comfortable with photoshop and in fact it has a great set of tools for creating graphic elements like Logos, Texts-etc, I would say create the exact Logo/text/graphics you want (including your selected pantone colors) in photoshop.  From there you have 2 choices:

1.  Apply the graphic to a planar "decal" like you show in your screenshot.  By default a plane automatically generates UV coordinates, so you should be able to drag and drop the image you create in photoshop onto the plane in a Max viewport and the image should be assigned to the object (after you save it as a graphic image file type of your choice (e.g., .png, .jpg, .psd, etc).  Sometimes you have to rotate the image 90 degrees in the material Editor if Max guesses wrong about what is Length and what is width of your plane since it can be created in different ways by the user.  But this is easy; enter 90 into the "W" field as shown below:

Plan ahead and use the same image proportions in your .psd file as the decal plane you created in max.

The other thing that comes up depending on your use case is the need for transparency in ceratin parts of your decal.  To do this with the Max physical material, you put a black (for transparency) and white (for fully opaque) map in the "Cutout slot" of the Physical Material.   You would create this map in Photoshop typically in a separate layer using the color map as a guide and then save it out as a  separate "Cutout" or opacity map.

  2.  Instead of applying the graphic to a separate object you can include it with the overall texture map of the object itself.  This is a bit more work, because you have to UV Unwrap the model which is likely not a just a simple plane.  For that approach,  you need to learn about UV Unwrapping in Max.   There are many tutorials on the subject you can find via google.

But it sounds like you start with the simple decal approach unless you want to learn about UV Unwrapping.  Hope this is clear.

[pxcable]

Thank you for taking the time out to reply in such detail with these 2 options. I like the idea of learning the 2nd option think this sounds like the more professional approach? but I guess each method has its place.

[10DSpace]

@pxcable 

Glad to help.  Regarding "professional", I think whatever is the quickest way to gets the job done with quality is the answer.   The trade-off with the decal approach is you need a smooth surface to attach it to and then you need to keep it attached to your object while it is moved around the scene, if animated for example or even you changing it's position.  Easy to do with either grouping or parenting but you have to remember to do it.   

I think in the long run, learning Unwrap UVW in Max is well worth it for most use cases, especially with PBR workflows where you are working in other applications like Substance Painter.   Regarding learning UV Unwrapping, I recently responded to a request on this forum which might be helpful to you so I'll pass it along:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-modeling/any-recommended-tutorials-on-how-to-learn-unwrap-uvw...

The main info is in post #2 of the forum thread.  Hope it helps get you started.