Texturing Maestri's Fish

In the video, "Texturing an Object," Maestri demonstrates how to apply a multi-sub-object texture to his fish project:

1. Start with a viewport showing a side-on view (e.g., Left).

2. Create a reference image for your texture, either by doing a screen grab or by generating a quick render.

3. In Photoshop or similar image processor (you can even use Flash), drop in the image and crop out extraneous blank space. Paint textures over the outline of the fish. You may overlap the lines considerably (this isn't kindergarten).

4. Maestri also creates an opacity map. Black is transparent, white is opaque.

5. Return to 3D Studio Max. Open the Material Editor. In an available texture slot, place a bitmap in the Diffuse channel. Apply this texture to your fish.

6. Go to Modifiers < UV Coordinates < UVW Map. Select Planar Map.

7. Tweak the planar map; Maestri removes a purple spot at the bottom of his fish by increasing the vertical size of the map.

8. Maestri adds his opacity map as a bitmap on the Opacity channel of the material, then also tweaks the placement of this map.

9. To better observe opacity, render against white. Go to Render < Environment and set color to white.

10. Maestri sets the Opacity channel to channel 2, then adds a second UVW Mapping modifier to apply to this channel.

11. Texture the eyes. First change the fish texture in the Material Editor from Standard to Multi-Sub-Object. Keep the old material as substrate.

12. Set the number of materials to 2. Create a flat black material in the second slot.

13. Go to Editable Poly, and select by Element. Select the eye element (which handles both eyes). Scroll down and find the materials settings. Set the material ID to 2. Make sure the ID set for the rest of the fish is 1.