Mapping Channel/ and UVW Modifier -New Q

[Starstreams]

I’ve got two questions I need help on if anyone could lend a hand Please



Question-1.
When you are using more then one texture on an object doses it make sense to use more then one map channel setting for each texture on the mesh to control each textures orientation differently?
See I couldn’t figure out how to control both the scaling and movment of the textures separately on this mesh so the only way that makes sense to me is to assigning different textures to different ID’s and then copy and paste as many UVW map modifiers as need and then just set different map channel settings with in each new UVW Modifier.

Doses this sound correct or am I making more work for myself?
There are only two textures on this mesh, each texture has a different channel setting in the material window so it only made sense to me to give both UVW map modifiers a different cannel setting to reflect back on the materials channel settings in the material browser. But is that the long way of doing it?

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Question-2
Correct me if I’m wrong on my assumption, but it seems as though the UVWMap is mainly used for getting the texture "dimensions" set while on the other had the Unwrap modifier is mainly for "moving" the textures?

I don’t get why Discreet didn’t just merge them both into one modifier. I mean do I always need to use them both for moving and sizing my textures for Unreal static meshes?


Thanks

 

[Hourences]

Your making it yourself way to hard. It takes a while to get used to max texturing, but your killing yourself like this

a channel is used for things like lightmapping, when you lightmap, the lightmap will use a second set of coordinates, thus require another channel.
That are kind of situations where you want to use that for, you really dont want to use it for normal texturing. Just use a multi sub object material, put in mutliple textures, apply the whole material to your mesh, and then give the right surfaces the right mat id's so it gets the right texture. And if you want to have multiple alignments its prolly the best to just add an edit mesh modifer > select a couple of surfaces > while selected add a new uvw map > it will now only apply to those surfaces you had selected.

I dont use unwrap a lot for normal stuff, uvw maps do just fine. When i first started with max I was confused too, and I used way too much unwrapping, which sometimes made me nutz
but at the end you can do quiet a lot with just uvws, and no they arent just ment for getting the dimensions, you can move/scale/align textures just as well with them.
If i have the side of a pillar for instance and i want a texture to align to that, i just use a box or face uvw map for that, works fine, and no need for unwraps.

 

[Starstreams]

Thanks Hourences, you have brought a new perspective on things! :tup:

Just one last question though: where you mentioned to use a UVW-Map modifier on the selected faces, what if I wanted all my faces to have different coordinates? Would this mean that each face I wanted to be a different direction would need it’s own UVW-Map?

By the way, thanks again I’m already much more clear on this now!

 

[Hourences]

Yes then every face should be selected in edit mesh > then add uvw map modifier
Tho I dont see why you want every face to have another alignment, and in such case it might be faster to use unwrap yes
after everytime you added a uvw map thats in sub object (meaning the edit mesh > select a face, thing is still active) you can collaps the mesh, or just add a new edit mesh modifier and do the same thing again for the next face
this way you wont mess up your previous aligned faces

 

[Dr. Nick]

Oh, I don't know when this functionality was added, but if you select a mesh ( or other object ) in the highest selection mode(not vert/face/ect edit) and add a UVW unwrap, you can then click the UVW unwrap modifier in the stack and manually select faces to unwrap in the viewports. (The background around the modifier will turn yellow if you did it right) The selected faces also automatically highlight themselves in the UVW unwrap window, so you don't have to go searching for them.
Figuring this out made my life a lot easier. Now I don't have to constantly add new edit meshes or whatnot to select new faces to unwrap

 

[Starstreams]

Thanks for all the help Hourences and Dr.
By the way, a friend of mine who goes by the name of Spooge gave me a call the other night and gave me a tip on the phone. There is a quicker way with out using ID’s, which I think you already mentioned.
Take a look at the last few posts in this thread.
http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?p=1174864&goto=postid

By the way, I would like to see you guys and more of the people in this modeling section spend some time in the Infiltration Development section of the forums. It’s one of the few places were serious mappers post and there are a lot of good conversations in there related to 3Ds and the editor.
It’s also Where Angle-Heart posts.
I would have to say Spooge and Angle Heart are two of the best Unreal level designers I have ever seen and I am one picky dude. I don’t have a web link to Anglehearts site at the moment but take a look at spooge’s work on the 2.0 build.
http://www.planetunreal.com/Spooger/Maps.html

Anyway, you guys should stop in, it woujld be great to have you in there.
It’s kind of like a family I guess.