How do I set an Arnold image map channel?

[Anonymous]

Please forgive the stupidity of this question (I know this must be a really striaght forward process), but as a lot of other Max users, I'm new to Arnold. For the life of me I cant figure out how to assign a map channel to an MAXtoA image map. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[RGhost77]

Why you don't use Bitmap map? It's even fully supported in Arnold stand alone.

[Anonymous]

I know, and I currently am for the time being, but I wanted to take advantage of Arnold's TX maps as they are much quicker. I'm trying to embrace this brave new world but I've been stumped by the simplest of things!

Any help would be much appreciated!

[RGhost77]

I use Bitmap map with "Use Existing TX Textures" enabled. If MAXtoA see texture with same name it uses .tx instead of image in Bitmap map. This will allows see images in 3ds max and use optimal .tx for render.

[Anonymous]

Thank you - never thought of that! It feels like a bit of work around but i'm happy to be working with something a little more familiar.

Incidentally - the scene I'm working on actually renders slightly slower using TX maps 😞

[eorichard]

@James Dale

There is an answer. You have to use 2 shaders : UV Projection and Matrix Transform after your image block.

[eorichard]

@James Dale

There is an answer. You have to use 2 shaders : UV Projection and Matrix Transform after your image block.

[eorichard]

A better solution. Use "triplanar shader".

[madsd]

Hi,

As for the .tx issue.
What I do is I use the OSL texture(); call.
Zap provides 2 texture loaders in the default install, OSL acccepts .tx directly, and you can work with UV channels like you normally would.

If you have a lot of legacy textures and or Arnold nodes, you can use my Rebel Pack Arnold converter to automatically change all bitmap types to the OSL one, or to Arnold image.

[syndicate5]

Im squinting as I dip my toe into the OSL pond...is there a good tutorial on OSL textures?