NEW Technique - Multi/Sub-Object Materials

Some scenes in 3D Studio Max require many different materials to be used. Also, sometimes you need to apply different materials to different areas of an object. This is the technique that I learnt to overcome these problems.

In 3DS Max there are only 12 material slots by default. This can be increased to 24 by right-clicking on a material slot and selecting the 6x4 Sample Windows option. But if you need more than 24 slots, or you need to apply different materials to different areas of an object you can use something called Multi/Sub-Object materials.

By selecting the Multi/Sub-Object in the Material/Map browser, you then get the option to keep the material in that slot as a sub-material or to discard it. If the slot is empty to start with, it doesn't matter which option you choose. You then get a list of 10 material slots under a menu titled Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters. This can be extended as required. Each slot has it's own ID number and there is also a box where you can give the material a name.

In each of these slots you can create materials as you would in the normal material editor by simply clicking on the buttons labelled "Material # (Standard)" in the Sub-Material column. Alternatively, if you already have a material that you need to make into a sub-material then you can drag and drop it from the browser onto this button.

Once you have a few sub-materials defined you can the apply the multi material as you would any other material by dragging and dropping onto the relevant object. The object needs to be converted into an editable poly (if it is not already one). Once the material has been applied you need to go into sub-object mode and select the faces option. This is where you define which of the sub-materials to apply.

The best way to start is to define the main material you will use. For example, when making the Guildhall, the bottom of the outer walls consists of brickwork, whilst the rest of the wall is white masonry. Therefore it makes sense to apply the white masonry material to the whole wall first and then go back to define where the brickwork needs to be. You can do this by selecting all of the faces in the wall. Then, in the sub-object menu on the right hand side you can navigate down to a section called "Polygon: Material IDs". Now, in the Set ID box you simply need to enter the ID number of the relevant sub-object material. For example, if white masonry was in slot number 1 of the multi material, then we'd enter 1 in the Set ID box.

Now it is simply a case of selecting the faces that you wish to apply a different material to. In the Guildhall project, this was the bottom row of faces on the outer wall. You then follow the same method, entering the relevant ID number in the Set ID box. This technique allows you to apply as many different materials to one object as you wish. Also, if all of the 24 material slots in 3DS Max were used as Multi/Sub-Object materials, then it would allow you to have 240 different materials before you needed to add any more ID slots.

In the Guildhall project, I used this technique in a few different areas. As mentioned, the key area was the bottom row of bricks on the actual Guildhall itself. Also, when creating a basic model of the pub across the road and the houses next to the Guildhall, this technique came in very useful. I created basic textures in Adobe Photoshop CS5 for the fronts of these buildings. The, I created a box-shaped object with two height segments. I applied the bitmap material of the front of the building using a UVW-mapping modifier, and then I could match the colours all the way around the building by applying different colour materials to the different height segments.

Application of Materials

Throughout the Guildhall, several different materials were required. Altogether, I used 12 single material slots and then 4 more for multi/sub-object materials which I'll talk about in the next post.

The 12 single slot materials used were as follows:
- Front/Rear/Left/Right Elevation reference planes
- Ground/Upper Floor reference planes
- White masonry
- Dark grey stone
- Clear glass
- Dark brown unfinished wood
- Translucent glass
- Lighter grey stone
- Roof tiles masonry
- Brickwork masonry
- Lighter unfinished wood
- Standard grass bitmap

The reference planes materials were created in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and set up as standard materials with a bitmap diffuse setting. This setting can be found under the Blinn Basic Parameters menu, by clicking the square box next to the Diffuse option and selecting Bitmap. This technique was also used for the grass material.

The white masonry material was created by navigating to the Architectural menu and selecting the masonry option from the drop-down option box. Then, I simply set the diffuse colour to white under the Physical Qualities section. I used this approach for creating several of the other materials too. The roof tiles and brickwork masonry were created in the same way, but instead of setting a diffuse colour, I applied diffuse maps that I had created in Photoshop. The dark brown and lighter brown wood materials were created in the same way, selecting the unfinished wood option from the drop-down option box and then applying diffuse maps created in Photoshop.

The dark grey and lighter grey stone materials were also created from the Architectural menu too, only this time selecting the stone setting from the drop-down option box. The clear and translucent glass materials were pre-set options on the drop-down option box.

The various materials were used for many different areas throughout the scene. The walls, floors and ceilings of the building used the white masonry material. The beams, window and door frames, stairs and even the handrails leading up the staircase all used the dark brown unfinished wood material. This was also used in the landscape for the fences. The lighter brown unfinished wood material was used for the doors, however this was too far away in shade from the frames at first so I had to edit the colour balance and contrast of this material in Photoshop. The majority of the windows in the building used the clear glass material. However, I noticed that some of the windows are in rooms that will be used as bathrooms. For these windows I chose the translucent glass option.

The roof of the building used the roof tile masonry material, whilst the brickwork masonry material was used for the chimney. Around the landscape, the grass material was clearly used for the grassy areas, whilst the dark stone material was used for the road. The lighter stone material was used for the pavements.

Landscape

In order to give a sense of setting to the Guildhall, I created a basic landscape around it. This featured a very basic model of the church and graveyard behind the Guildhall, two houses next to the Guildhall, the Red Lion pub opposite the Guildhall, as well as the road, pavement and grass.

The road, pavement and grass was all created from very large box shaped objects, converted to editable polys. For the grass, I moved some vertices around using the soft selection option in order to give the land some variation. I had considered using the noise modifier for this but felt that this would give too much variation.

The gravestones were simply a few basic shapes with the white masonry material applied, whilst the church, houses and pub were again very simple box models with materials applied. For the pub and the houses, the material was created in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and applied using the UVW-mapping modifier and sub-object material technique.

I also added some trees using the foliage option from the AEC Objects menu. Finally, I added a daylight system to the scene to give proper lighting. In order to achieve this I used Google Maps to determine which direction North faces and set the compass rose to point in this direction. This ensured that the lighting positioning would be correct for the scene. I then set the date to June to give a bright summertime lighting.

Glazed Walkway

To create the glazed walkway, I began by laying out the wall at the bottom. By using box shapes and moving them to correct positions following the reference planes. From there I could create the wooden beams - again using the same method. I had to use the rotate tool in order to get the beams positioned correctly in line with the building.

Creating the panes of glass was simple for the sides of the walkway - again just a case of creating box shapes and moving them into place. However, on top of the walkway, some of the panels needed to be modified as it wasn't a completely square position between the beams. I converted them into editable polys and achieved the correct shape by dragging the vertices into place.

Finally, I had to create doors at both ends of the walkway. I used the same method for this as I had in the previous section, when creating the doors for the building - creating a box, and moving the pivots to the correct position.

Stairs

When creating the stairs, the method used was quite simple - creating boxes, cloning and moving. However, fitting them into the space provided proved quite a task.

The stairs towards the right side of the building were quite simple to create. The space was adequate and the shape was a simple U-type staircase. As mentioned, it was built with boxes, cloning and moving them into position. I created a hand rail using cylinders and spheres for the joints.

The staircase near the lift well proved more tricky however. I found the space quite limited and although I used the same method as before, it was a squeeze to fit the stairs in. This staircase was an L-shape style. It also leads to the attic and, although I took the decision not to model the attic, I still needed to model the staircase leading up to it as this may be shown in the animation.

Doors

In order to create the doors for the Guildhall I began with the frames. Having already got all of the spaces cut out of the walls, this was an easy task - just creating box shapes and using the scale tool to fit the shapes around the gap.

I cloned these frames and fitted them around all of the door areas so that the only task then was to create the actual door itself. Again, the creation was a simple box shape. However, the doors needed to be fitted exactly to the frames, without overlapping. This is because any overlap would be noticeable when opening the doors, and if the door was too far from the frame, a notable gap would be created.

Using the scale tool, I achieved a good fit for the doors. After this I had to ensure that the door would open correctly. By navigating to the hierarchy menu, I could select the 'Move Pivot Only' option and this allowed me to move the center of rotation (the pivot) for the door. Using the reference planes as guides, I could determine in which direction the door should open and place the pivot accordingly. Once completed, the door could be opened correctly using the rotate tool.

Windows

Now that the main structure of the building has been completed, it's time to look at some of the details. The windows were the first thing to create. The windows of the Guildhall contain a lot of detail.

To start with, I created a box that fitted into the hole I had already cut out of the wall. This would be the glass of the window. I then created more boxes, placing them around the borders of the window. These formed the frames. The top and bottom boxes needed to stick out from the wall, creating the window ledges seen inside the Guildhall. The two side boxes needed to fit into the gap but not stick out of the wall. I used the scale tool to ensure that all of these boxes were the right size. I then created another similar box for the strut in the middle.

Once this was in place, I had a basic window. However, the windows of the Guildhall contain hatching. The bottom windows contain diagonal hatching, creating diamond shapes, whilst the top windows contain horizontal and vertical hatching, creating squares. The hatching was on both sides of the window pane. In order to create this, I formed a long, very thin box. I place this just on the outside of the window pane that I had already created. For the bottom windows I had to rotate and clone several of these boxes, whilst the top windows was simply a matter of cloning and re-positiong. Once I had achieved the correct window hatching, I then cloned the pattern, dragging it to the other side of the window pane. This ensured that the hatching was on both sides of the pane.

Once I had created one window, it was just a case of cloning it and placing into the other window spaces around the building.

Roof

The roof was created using a few different shapes and moving them around in accordance with the reference planes. It proved quite a tricky structure to get right as the Guildhall slopes in one direction, making a slight twist in the roof.

I started by creating a long, thin box shape and placing it on a slant. This would be the front part of the roof. I then cloned this shape to create the back part of the roof. By converting these shapes into editable polys I was then able to modify them to achieve the twist. Using the reference planes as a guide, I began by slightly rotating the edges at one end of the building. With soft selection turned on, this gave the effect I was looking for and so I repeated it for the other part of the roof.

Once these two panels were in place, I created a long cylinder shape for the top of the roof. Again, because of the twist, this had to be converted into an editable poly so that the edges and vertices could be modified in order to follow the seam where the two roof panels met.

Next, the triangular-shaped side walls were created and, again as editable polys, moulded into the right shape by pulling around the vertices. Then finally, the chimney was created by simply lining up boxes with the reference planes.

Upper Floor

In order to create the upper floor of the Guildhall, I began by cloning the ground floor and moving it upwards. This ensured that key elements such as the lift and stairwells remained in exactly the same place. I then began moving the elements around, in accordance with an upper reference plane created from the architects floorplans. Much of the second floor was created by following the same methods used in the first floor - moving walls to the correct positions, dragging the shape edges to line up with windows and doors.

At this point I decided not to model the attic as, judging from the plans, there is not really anything of interest up there and so the final animation will not be visiting that area.

Creating Beams

The Guildhall has many beams running throughout the building. In order to create these I simply used the box shape. To get the right shape and size I used the scale tool, and then it was just a case of following the outline shown in the reference planes. Once in the right place, I held shift and dragged another beam out, moving that one into the correct position. I continued this cloning process until all of the beams were in place.

However, the problem with the Guildhall is that it slopes - the back of the building is not the same height as the front. In order to solve this problem I had to convert all of the beams to editable polys and use the rear reference plane to adjust the height of the beams there, so that they were in the right position on both sides of the building.

Once finished, I added the main central beam, using a similar process. In order to create the wooden arch at the front I used a cylinder shape, converting to an editable poly and deleting one side in order to leave a half-cylinder. I had to use the bridging process in order to create new faces where the bottom half had been removed. Then it was a case of dragging the vertices until it form the correct arch-shape I was looking for.

Ground Floor - Basic Layout

In order to create the basic layout of the ground floor, I started by creating rectangular 2D shapes that followed the floorplan. By clicking on the smaller edge, holding shift and dragging it, I could ensure that the rectangles followed the floorplan, creating a new face whenever there was a window, door or new wall. I then extruded these rectangular faces up to the necessary height of the ground floor walls. However, this method caused problems later on when it came to removing polygons for the windows and doors. So, I started the process again.

Having already created the extruded rectangles, I could see how many faces were required on each wall, so this time I created 3D cuboids from the standard primitives menu. In the parameters section I could change how many segments the shape had. By looking at the extruded rectangles and counting how many faces were required, I could set the number of width segments. I then set the number of height segments to four. The bottom segment for the brick layer at the bottom of the Guildhall, the next two layers could be used for window and door placement, and the top layer would be the space between the top of the window and door frames and the next level.

Once I had created all of the cuboids and positioned them correctly using the reference planes, I had to convert them all into editable polys in order to move the shape edges into the correct positions for windows and doors. This was easily achieved using the reference planes. Once the edges were positioned I could remove the polygons where the windows and doors would be situated.

Upon removing these polygons, I was left with open faces around the border of the window or door. In order to resolve this, I used the bridge tool. By clicking on the inner and outer edges I could create a new polygon that bridged the gap, thus leaving me with a solid shape with holes cut out for the windows and doors. By doing this to all of the walls, it leaves me with the basic layout of the ground floor level.

Reference Planes

In order to start the group project, I took the architect's plans of the Guildhall and imported them into Adobe Photoshop CS4. Once there, I pasted all four elevation images into one document and aligned them so that the image could be used to make reference planes. I achieved this using the ruler tool, in a similar way to when I created the reference planes for my head model. This technique was easier for the Guildhall as, being a structure rather than an organic object, the features are quite linear. I also imported the architect's images of the floor plans into Photoshop in order to create reference planes for the building layout.

Once I had completed the Photoshop work, I created a plane in 3D Studio Max. I then went into the materials section and added a bitmap setting to the material diffuse property. The bitmap image was of the aligned Guildhall plans from Photoshop. Once setting the self-illuminate option to 100 and ensuring that the viewport settings were correct for showing the bitmap in full quality, I applied the material to the plane. I then applied the UVW-mapping modifier to the plane.

The UVW-mapping modifier allowed me to move the gizmo (the image) around without moving the planes. Once I had the left elevation shown on the plane and had reduced the plane to the right size, I then cloned the plane and repeated the process for all four elevations. I then created a new reference plane for the ground floor layout. Here I have five reference planes set up from which to create the model of the Guildhall.

Preliminary Research

The Finchingfield Guildhall was built over 540 years ago, in around 1470, by the Guild of the Holy Trinity. Around this time, the main hall itself would have been used as a school room. However, when the Guilds were abolished, the Guildhall was left to fall into disrepair.

John Mildmay bought the Guildhall, but in the 1620s it was sold to Robert Kempe. Kempe paid for the Guildhall to be repaired and in 1630 he sold it to members of the village for £50 each. To this day the Guildhall is still owned by the villagers of Finchingfield.

The Guildhall continued to be used as a school and from 1658 was also used for almshouses. Over the centuries, the villagers continued to use the hall for a variety of purposes, but by the 1900s it had fallen into disuse and disrepair.

With World War II taking place, it wasn't until the 1950s that the hall began to be repaired. A museum and a library were created on the ground floor. However, the repair work of the 1950s is damaging the building and so the restoration aims to strip the Guildhall of the harmful materials and restore the original hall. The almshouses will be removed and a museum and a library will be re-fitted on the ground floor. Several bathrooms will also be fitted, including disabled access bathrooms, in order to better serve the public once the building is opened after restoration.

The restoration will cost approximately £1.8 million, of which £1.3 million was donated by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Work will begin on the Guildhall on 4th January 2012 and the building will re-open to the public in April 2013.

Reaction to the Brief

My initial reaction to the brief is that this will be a very challenging module, building on the skills and techniques that were learned in the second year 3D Modelling and Animation module. I very much enjoyed working with 3D Studio Max last year and I am looking forward to working with this program again, expanding my knowledge of the software and learning new techniques.

The first part of the assignment for this module will be to create a model of my face. Knowing what I already know about 3D Studio Max, I predict this will be a complicated assignment, but one which will give great satisfaction once achieved. Last year I modelled the Golden Gate Bridge, however this was a fairly rigid structure with less curvature. I have no doubt that the face will present an even bigger challenge.

The second part of the assignment for this module will be to create an animation of how the Guildhall in Finchingfield has been used over the centuries. This is a group project. Once again I feel this will be a very complicated process and therefore, in order to achieve maximum results, it will be important that the work is shared out equally between all members of the group and that everybody pulls together. However, I am very much looking forward to the challenge of this module and seeing the final production.