A couple questions about modelling in max

[Gibdo]

I'm pretty new to max, so I have a couple questions regarding modelling and texturing. I'll start with a screenshot.

Here

The way I created that column is by sticking a bunch of primitives together. What I would like is to have them put altogether and eliminate the polygons in the center. Its kind of layered like a cake. but I want the tops and bottoms of the parts of the layers that aren't showing in my cake to be gone. Does that make sense? It would be hollow if I done it that way.

Also, for the trim thats sticking out, I applied an UVWMap to the mesh, but I want to align the textures different for the top and bottom compared to the sides. The sides, would be aligned to a cylinder or box, and the top and bottom looks better as a face. I dont know how to do that.

Hope you guys can help.

 

[Radiosity]

First of all, right click the mesh and convert it to an Editable Poly. EditPoly is the preferred method of modelling in max for games as it has so much more functionality than EditMesh mode. Ok, first of all, select each of the mesh objects one at a time, hit '4' to go into Face subobject mode, then select the top and bottom faces of the meshes and hit the delete button to kill them.

Now you'll have to attach the pieces together (this is important as Ued will not allow seperate objects in an exported mesh to be imported, it has to be a single object). Select a single piece of the mesh, then hit the Attach button in the modifier panel on the right. Now click on each of the other pieces to attach them all together. Once you've done that, hit '1' to enter vertex mode, select all verts, then look in the modifier panel for the Weld option. Click the button to weld the vertices together.

As for the uv mapping issue, just select the faces you want to map differently, detach them to a seperate object, apply the map you want, then attach the faces back to the main mesh.

I'll be writing a short tutorial soon on using edit poly for modelling. I'll post the link here if you're interested, I guarantee you'll find it useful if you're wanting to model static meshes

 

[Gibdo]

Yes, please do so. That will be helpful to me.

And thanks for the info. I will practice a bit more on it.

After you delete the faces though, since this is the way I created the mesh, how would I go about having the empty space removed here? Just create it a different way?

Here is a new screenshot.