Help with unwrapping.

[tesher07]

Ok Well first off let me say that I learned the basics of unwrapping from Generalvivi's tutorials for making a bench and I had made a subway station sign model and tried to unwrap it which I thought was successfull but when I applied to uv to the model like Generalvivi did to his, it looked terrible. I don't know what I did wrong but here is the model and the uv. I'm not sure which one I was supposed to put on the model but the one that looks terrible is the psd one which I believe was from photoshop. The other one I just put onto the model was a Png. file that looks good. Which one was I supposed to put on the model?

[McGreed]

The subway sign.jpg is a normal map, and im guessing that the one there is on your model right now, is an ambient occlusion map. You use the normal map to fake details and make things look more round then the mesh actually is. The occlusion you use on your original texture, to get it more realistic baked shadow effect.

[tesher07]

So what do I do? I kind of ruined the psd one because I took the .png into photoshop and put it onto my model and but a bruch onto the .pgn in photoshop. Then I saved the .png and the brush appeared on my model. Then I went and got a pic off the internet and put it onto the .pgn and saved it but it saved onto the psd which I think ruined that file but I made a copy of the .png So what should I do?

I have the .png file which looks good on the model atm so what do I do now?

The file I uploaded is the subway sign with the .png

[McGreed]

Not quite sure what you are talking about, what textures do you have? and what is this psd file for, if you ruined a texture, just rebake it.
EDIT: and since I dont know which tutorial you are talking about, I cannot tell you if you are doing something wrong compared to that. And the last image you posted is just the normal map used as a texture instead of using it as normal map.

[tesher07]

Ok sorry for confusing you.

First off, the tutorial is here: » Tutorials Scroll down to the bottom.

Next: Did I unwrap the model right? I currently have a png. file that had a uv on it which I gave an image link to a post up.

Finally: Is there anything else I need to attain from the model before texturing it, or is the .png the only one I need?

[Generalvivi]

it looks like you unwrapped it ok from the look of your uvmap texture. Just tell the model to use the psd as a texture? It seems like your confused on something with what texture to apply to your model. If you use a psd file it will auto update onto your model. The uvmap texture was just for reference in photoshop.

perhaps I also don't understand your question.

[tesher07]

Ok lets make this simple.

Which one do I use for my texture the .png or the .psd?

or

What do I do after I have the .png file?

[MrDev]

I've always stuck with .tga (Targa) it has all the capabilities you need, PSD's should never be used for anything but Photoshop it may be supported but its not a format designed be anything other than a Photoshop document. and .png's (portable network graphics) were designed to replace Gif's for transparency usage on the web... not for games.

Hope that helps

I'm assuming you're going to texture the object

After you have the .png file, Open the png in photoshop, work on your texture, save it as a tga, import the tga texture into max and apply the texture to the UV map.

[tesher07]

Ok thank you.

3 questions

1. I don't know how to texture so where can I find a tutorial on texturing?

2. What do you mean apply the the tga file to the uv map? Do you mean put the tga in the materials tab and apply it to the model?

3. Theres a problem, I cant save the .png file as a targa what do I do?

[MrDev]

There are various tutorials online, We have a couple in our own forum you'll have to search around for them. I'm sure you've seen the purchasable tutorials, and I must say the ones I have chosen to buy were well worth it. If you can afford it the Eat3d Tutorial on nex-gen texturing is worth every penny.

You'll have to forgive me I don't use Max, I mean apply the TGA the same way the PNG is applied.

If you're saving the TGA in photoshop it should easily save over, you may not be able to export it from max though if thats what you're doing.