How can I extract materials/maps into bitmaps, etc?

[gaggle]

Your description makes it difficult for me to understand exactly what you want. There are two distinctly different options:
Do you want to bake a material of whatever complexity into bitmaps you can then edit in Photoshop?
Or is the material that is applied to the object already made of bitmaps, and not procedural textures, and you want to edit those original bitmaps?

I don't even know how much sense this post makes.. hm.. but yeah, please further define what it is you wish to do.

[Six Black Roses]

Ok, let's say I open up a scene with a cube in it. That cube has a picture on it (diffuse map). What I want to do is to extract that diffuse map into a bitmap, save it to a folder on my HD so I can edit it in Photoshop, etc. Keep in mind that the original material consists of a bitmap diffuse map.

Hope that was clear enough.

[gaggle]

What is preventing you from opening the original bitmap diffuse map? If the diffuse map is controlled by a bitmap in the first place, it sounds odd that you want to extract that into yet another bitmap?

That sounds so odd that I'm going to assume I'm still not understanding you. Please continue trying :).

[SuperMax]

By the sounds of it He hasnt used a bitmap or any out side image

He did the material using only the Material Editor, I think those maps are called Procedural Maps?

So extracting the "bitmap" out of the diffuse slot is not possible as there is no bitmap in there.

Thats what i think i understand.

It if helps Double clicn on the Map and Enlarge it as much as you want. Print Screen and edit it in Photoshop. But then it becomes a Bitmap or a picture file itself.

[KINGOMONKEY]

ok i think i might get this one....

Is it that youve imported an object in max and it renders with a texture on it?

But when you ge to the material editor, there doesnt seem to be a map?

if so, within the material dialogue, select the eyedropper tool and then click on the object in the scene that has the material applied, all the maps for that object will then appear in your material editor.

This sort of thing is often needed if you export as an . obj for example but cant find the materials.

Hope this helps
Kingomonkey

[Six Black Roses]

Perhaps I should mention that I'm only starting out in 3ds max, and haven't really played around with the material editor.

For simplicity's sake, let's assume that the texture is made of a bitmap... All I want to do is to extract that bitmap from the .max file into a .bmp file, for external editing.

Also, how may I delete a material from an object? I hit the delete key in the Material Editor, but the object in the scene instead vanishes.

[Baldrick]

To find out what maps a material uses do the following;

1) Select your object
2) Go to the material editor and click the far left icon - looks like a blue sphere with an arrow.
3) Choose 'Selected' from the option on the left - this will show you the material applied to your object. Double click it to copy it into the materials editor.
4) In the lower part of the editor window scroll down until you see the 'Maps' rollout (you may need to expand it if its rolled up)
5) This shows you all the 'slots' available for maps - if any slot has anything other than 'None' in it then it has a map applied.
6) Click on the one you are interested in - probably the diffuse one.
7) This shows you the map options. Now, if your texture is already a bitmap then it most likely says 'Bitmap' in the mid-right of the editor window. A little down from this is a long wide slot which shows you the path to the bitmap - you can simply load this map into photoshop or whatever.


To remove a material from an object;

1) Open the material editor
2) Click the button on the mid-right of the editor window (probably says 'Standard' or some other material type.
3) Click 'New' in the options on the left
4) Drag 'NONE' from the list onto your object in the viewport.

[gaggle]

Originally posted by Six Black Roses
For simplicity's sake, let's assume that the texture is made of a bitmap... All I want to do is to extract that bitmap from the .max file into a .bmp file, for external editing.

Also, how may I delete a material from an object? I hit the delete key in the Material Editor, but the object in the scene instead vanishes.

It doesn't work that way, bitmaps in MAX are always referenced to, they cannot be "included", if you will, into the .max file itself. If the material uses a bitmap, then that bitmap already exists somewhere. Otherwise you get a Missing Bitmap error when loading the file and/or rendering.


You can completly delete a material from an object by selecting the object, then go the Utilities panel, hit the More button, and find the one called UVW Remove. In there you can hit the Material button and voila, no more material applied to the object.

The reason it's made that way is because of how MAX "thinks". A material is not a selectable object that you can directly delete, instead this utility goes in and breaks the material/object connection. The material can still exist in the material editor, it will simply no longer be connected to the object.

This is unlike, say, Maya, where a material can infact be selected much like any other object. It's a basic difference between the two programs.

But I digress.

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