Hey everyone. This is Matt from CyberBlue 234 and I’m having major trouble with creating bitmap textures. Basically, I’m trying to place a bitmap onto a 3d surface (i.e. the face of a cube) to create a texture. An example is the stadium we’ve created. I’m trying to put a bitmap of people (the crowd) onto each seating section. For some reason I can’t get the bitmap to show up. I understand the use of an environ, but since we have a camera that moves, those would be of no use. Can anyone offer any tips?
Well, I’m not exactly certain where your problem is, so I’m going to approach it step by step. I’m sorry if any of this is obvious to you, I’m just being thorough. 
First, make your object (obviously you’ve already done this), make sure it is selected, then enter the Material/Map editor. In the attribute called “Diffuse”, there should be a blank box directly to the right of the color box. Click this, then select “Bitmap” from the list. After you pick the bitmap, click the button right below the material previews (the spheres at the top) that is third from the left… “Assign Material to Selection” Render out your image, it should be there, unless your object is of a non-standard variety. In that case, the render should have told you that you’re missing a UVW map. A UVW map tells MAX how to put the texture on the object. There are different selections such as spherical, cylindrical, box, etc. etc. For a stadium crowd, your best bet would be to choose Cylindrical and then make sure it’s aligned to the proper axis (chosen by an option at the bottom of the rollout).
Maybe you know all this, and you just wanted how to know how to make a bitmap show up on just one specific part of an object (e.g. a crowd on one part, concrete on another). To do this, you must make a Multi/Sub-Object material. Select an unused material slot. Next to the window that contains the name of the material (likely “3 - Default” or something similar) is a button that says “Standard.” Clicking it will bring up a list (this may have been where you were selecting “Bitmap” earlier, which won’t work)… Select “Multi/Sub-Object” Suddenly, all the attributes below will be replaced with a list of other materials. Select one (clicking the material name in the button on the right), and add a bitmap (your crowd) to it using the steps I gave earlier. Then, apply an “Edit Mesh” modifier to your object (if you haven’t already) and select just the faces of your object that you want to have the texture. Then, click the “Assign Material to Object” button and just that part of the object should have the material.
If you have any questions or problems about my synopsis, please tell me…
Good luck!
Albrot
Team 21 - ComBBAT
hey thanks ComBBat, but I actually figured out my problem yesterday! anyway thanks for the advice. it will be put to good use mind you…
Matt