3dsMax: How to add ring to Garand rear sight?

[Swaffy]

I am trying to add a ring shape to the M1 Garand rear sight. I want it to be a part of the mesh, and also use its texture.
How can I do this?

I am a big fan of detail, so this is as far as I've gotten for adding the rear sight's ring:

[Sgt.Killboy]

Well, that's pretty easy! I actually just did something similar with an M40 sniper rifle, by adding a silencer to it. All you need is the textured ring you want to add. Import the weapon in 3Ds Max, convert it to an "editable polygone" put the ring where you want it an then attach it to the weapon. -> Select weapon, right click to get to the quad menu, attach, done.

All you have to do now is export it as standardmesh and put it back in your mod. Also don't forget to put the texture in your mods textures directory.

Everything should be fine now.

Edit: I suggest to use parts ot the M1s textures for the ring you add, to make them match to the M1. Open the M1 texture in Photoshop or whatever you use, an copy it to your rings UVW unwrap by using the Stamp tool in Photoshop. In case of the silencer I added to the M40 i took parts of its scopes texture and made a new texture of it. Here's what i got then:

[Swaffy]

Alright. I added the ring to the mesh and attached it to the gun. I have it working in-game, but the ring has not been added to the texture's map.

What are the steps to adding the ring to the UVW Map? I can get my texture working in 3DS Max 7, but I haven't learned about adding shapes to the UVW map. If you can provide an ordered list of which button to click on, or something similar, I can easily follow them.

[Senshi]

Add a modifier "Unwrap UVW", then use "select face" tool (with "Select element" option enabled) and select a single face of the ring. This should auto-select the whole ring. Then just unwrap the ring on the UVW map as needed and place it in an empty spot - if one exists, hopefully.

[Swaffy]

Alright. I added the ring to the UVW map and tried a few places to see if I can get a nice looking texture for the ring.

Here's the one I did on the Type 5's [almost] square rear sight:
I don't know how easy it is to see it ...

That dark triangle on the right of the rear sight was giving me a headache trying to fix it, so I'm just going to leave it there.



It is working in-game. Thanks, guys. These improved iron sights wil make my mod a lot more enjoyable.

[Sgt.Killboy]

Senshi is right!

Way 1 in case theres enuff space on the texture, to place your ring:

-Import the weapon
-create the ring
-convert the weapon to an "editable poly" (right click, convert to, editable polygone)
-attach the ring to the weapon (right click, attach)
-apply a UVW unwrap modifier to the weapon (Modifiers, UV coordinates, UVW unwrap)
-In the command panel (Menu on the right) choose "face" in the UVW unwrap modifier you applied.
-select all faces of you ring then hit Edit in the parameter menu of the command panel
-Unwrap the faces and place them on an empty spot of the texture.
-export the UVW unwrap with textporter to some place in the size the original texture has (lets say 512 x 512)
_______

This is now in Photoshop, while 3DsMax is still running but minimized.

-open the UVW unwrap in Photoshop
-open the texture in photoshop
-drag the texture to the UVW unwrap
-choose a part of the texture that might fit to the ring (metal part in this case)
-mask the part you've chosen, copy and paste it as a new layer, and move it to where your unwrapped parts are
-add some highlights or whatever you want to make it look better
-collapse the layers and close the texture.
-save the UVW unwrap by using the textures name (overwrite the texture)

______

Now 3Ds MAx again

-check if the textures fit in 3DsMax

If so, export it and enjoy playing


Way 2 in case theres no space left on the texture:

-create the ring
-apply an UVW unwrap modifier
-Unwrap it
-export the UVW unwrap
-do the texturing in Photoshop
-apply the texture to the ring in 3Ds
-import the weapon
-convert the weapon to editable poly
-attach the ring
-export the weapon
-putt the texture of the ring in your mods directory
-play

The weapon will read both texture now.

[Sgt.Killboy]

Oh...lol...you posted faster than I did!



The triangle is an issue with the smoothing groups or even some vertices that aren't welded together.

Smoothing groups:

To remove the triangle, select the faces of the front, where you experience the triangle, in edit poly mode. If it was a box I'd say select all the faces of the front.
Go to "polygone properties" in the command panel. Hit Autosmooth, done.

Vertices:

Weld all the vertices that might been broken apart in Vertex Mode of the weapon after converting it to an editable poly. Maybe do the smoothing group thing if it doesnt solve the problem.

EDIT: Oh! Wait! Maybe theres faces overlapping...check that too!



EDIT 2:

Also go here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=982 and watch one of the last pics...it's the same problem there...the blackened parts, you know!

[Swaffy]

Figuring out how to stuff like this just boosted my all-around modding skills quite a bit.
I'm probably going to go on a mesh/texture editing frenzy to "fix up" the iron sights for many weapons in the game.

The downside of me doing this is that it's keeping me from releasing the next Swaffy'sMod version.
[It's been a long time since my last release, the two versions will be very different.]