Knotted Net tutorial for 3ds max - part three

This is part three of my Knotted Net tutorial for 3ds max. In the previous parts we created a knot and expanded it to a piece of net. Check out the previous tutorials:
http://www.infobarrel.com/How_to_Model_a_Knot_in_3ds_MAX
http://www.infobarrel.com/Knotted_net_tutorial_for_3ds_max_-_part_two

(You can get all files of this tutorial for free - scroll down to the end of the article to find out how)

Things You Will Need

3ds max or another 3d authoring software

Step 1

Select our knot and check the Enable in Viewport option. At this point you should decide what level of smoothness you need by setting the Steps value in the Interpolation rollout -‚‚‚‚‚‚‚ I believe something between 1 and 4 should work well.

We don't need the Spline object anymore, so we'll turn it into polygons. Select the net object, right-click somewhere in the viewport and from the menu that pops up do Convert To: Convert to Editable Poly.

Step 2

Here we'll apply the detail normal map to the net. If you decide to create your own detail map make sure it tiles nicely. I am not going to go into that in this tutorial.

Feel free to use this image as your detail map

http://www.infobarrel.com/media/image/4261.png

Ok, open up the material editor (M-key), pick any one of the materials there and scroll down to the Maps-rollout. Increase the value in the field next to Bump to 100 and then click on the button which says "None" next to it and select Normal Bump. Again click the "None"‚ button next to Normal and chose Bitmap. Browse to your normal map and open it. Click on the Assign Material to Selection button and then the checkered cube button to see the texture in viewport. It should be stretched.....badly :)

Step 3

Now in the Modify panel apply Unwrap UVW-Modifier

Step 4

This is where the "fun" begins. :) Click the big "Edit..." button. All Uvs are jammed in the little UV-square. The good news is that because we used a spline to create the cords of the net, Uvs are actually very clean. We only need to stretch them to allow the texture to tile on the mesh. In my case the Uvs need to be stretched vertically but I guess depending on how you built your model you might have to stretch them horizontally instead. There is no good way to explain this step by step. I'd suggest selecting the separate cords of the net and moving them to the side in UV space and then working on each one individually paying special attention to the uvs of the knots. Once you understand what you're doing you should be able to fix the uvs in 10 minutes or so. Good luck!

Step 5

In the image you can see what my UVs look like :) LOL -‚ matrix reloaded.

Step 6


I hope you were able to complete this tutorial. If not, please leave a comment and let me know where you are having difficulties.

You can get all files of the tutorial for free (you will have to register to turbosquid though. Sorry, wish there was a way around this :) )
http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/485238?referral=toshirou

Alright, go to the next part:
(url to be added)