If I have a normal character model in 3ds Max, that is textured and UVW unwrapped, what is the correct workflow to import into unity with multiple materials?
So say for example I have a boxer guy and one material has a texture map for his body and another material for his gloves. (His gloves needs to be using another material because I want to control the color in game)
So is it just a case of using a multi sub object to hook up the body material texture for the 1st material, then add in the gloves material for the 2nd?
Thanks for any help.
As long as the correct amount of material ids get assigned to the mesh in 3ds max you will be able to apply the same about of materials to the mesh in unity. The multisub material in max is a way to organize multiple textures into one material slot in max. You would still need to apply the mat ids by selecting faces of your mesh and apply the texture. Or you can apply the whole multisub material and assign mat ids by selecting faces and setting mat ids by setting a number in the sub category called Polygon: Mat Ids listed under face mode of the mesh.
Thanks for the help. Having multiple materials, in this case 2 on one model in unity would be ok on mobile?
Also would it be best to use render to texture on the materials?
The end result needs to be in a image format such as jpg, png, tga, etc. For best results save your textures to your Unity project and from there load those textures in your 3ds max materials. If you are not doing that you can export your mesh as a fbx with"embed textures" checked and your mesh should load into unity with all the textures applied. For your sub material in the multisub, keep the setting to the standard blinn because Unity does not support the majority of 3ds max materials.
Ok, got it.
But just one more thing. I have assigned the material ID’s (so thats material ID 1 for the body and ID 2 for the gloves)
When I save my UV Layout, do I paint my textures for the body (ID 1) only on the parts that are the body, leaving out the gloves, then save a different texture for the gloves?
Or, do I use just one texture, with both the body and gloves painted, then in Max, wire the materials to use that texture?
Im a bit confused on how using multiple materials with one UV layout.
The reason behind using multiple materials varies. For instance, some people when texturing characters like to use multiple smaller maps. Others like to have a single large atlas for their character texture. Maybe the character has armor and the designer wants the texture of the armor to be separate from the skin texture of the character which would create two textures the character would need. Maybe the armor requires it own special shader in unity to make it look more like like metal which ends up being two materials in unity: 1 metal shader, one skin shader. They could also assign material ids to the skin and armor but have it read off the same texture which would still be 2 different material shaders in unity because it was assign 2 material ids. The why, is all a matter of design preference. Hope that makes sense.
convert multisub material into a single material. Material Converter helps you to prepare a shared material from two or more identical materials which differ only in textures and color.It combines different textures into a texture atlus that can be used by shared material.It auto remaps mesh’s uv into texture atlas.
Material converter is available in the assetstore Material Converter | Modeling | Unity Asset Store
Also visit http://support.spinoffstudio.com/Material_Converter.html