From the course: 3ds Max: UVW Mapping

Object XYZ

- We have then, a little bit of a problem. If you recall from our previous exercise, we tested our mapping solution using some simple test motion on our robot character here, and discovered that the mapping source we were using, World XYZRZ, was in the end, a long way from usable. The problem, if I just hit "Play" in the RAM player here, is that our geometry is simply swimming through the noise map that we have applied as a texture. What we want to do in this video then, is explore a possible solution for the problem, by applying a different UVW mapping source. Let's open up the "Material Editor" then, and double click to load up our noise map parameters. And in the mapping "Source" dropdown, switch from using 'World XYZRZ' to "Object XYZ" instead. The idea here is that mapping generated using the object's localized coordinate space, should theoretically be tied or locked to the geometry itself. Now of course we already know from experience that what we see in our viewports when it comes to procedural maps, cannot always be trusted. And so we will need to render out another task sequence. As we already have that done, we can simply go ahead and in Channel B of the RAM player, load up the 02_03 Object_Space sequence. Once we have it loaded, we can easily see the difference this mapping source switch has made, with our noise map now very clearly sticking to the robot geometry surface. Indeed, any animation applied to this object now by means of transform animation, will always produce the same end result. And I do stress the word "transform" very deliberately here, because so far as the mapping sourcing option is concerned, there is a big difference in transform, as opposed to deformation animation in 3ds Max. To demonstrate what I mean, let's open up a variation of our stat scene here, by coming to the "Chapter 02" folder in our "Exercise_Files" project, and opening up the "02_03_DeformationScene" file. In this version, if I just hit "Play", our geometry has much the same test motion applied to it. Only this time, if I hit the "F3" key to switch to a wireframe view, we see that it is now being driven by means of a 3ds Max bone system. Which also means, if I go ahead and select one of the geometry pieces here, that we are making use of 3ds Max's skin modifier to tie all our red pieces together. Now skin of course, is a geometry-based deformation system that works by tracking so object vertex locations in space. A different approach entirely, as compared to the object-level pivot-point based animation we have been using up to this point. What this ultimately means, if I go ahead and load yet another rendered sequence into the RAM player, this time taking of course from our current version of the same, is that we are once again (laughs) right back to our original text-to-swimming problem. Clearly when using deformation-based animation, we are going to need a very different solution, which we can actually get by taking a more specific approach to our UVW mapping source. In fact, we actually have two possibilities open to us - both of which can produce effects for our current problem, one of which, though, does have a potentially time-consuming down side, making it the perfect candidate for us to take a first look at in our very next exercise.

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