Free Computer Tutorials: Creating Game Environments in 3ds Max

Wu Zepu gives us an overview of his game environment workflow in the creation of his Clone image using CryEngine and 3ds Max

To create the image Clone, the basic process of production was as follows:

1. Make sure the model and the texture are finished
2. Import the files to the engine
3. Set the CryEngine parameters
4. Set the CryEngine material parameters
5. Preview the levels overall effect

Model and texture-making

First of all, I made the shapes of the scene as a reference. I put these basic shapes in 3ds Max with some more basic shapes, and then made the props. The scenes of wall and floor of the UV were reused, and also decals make an obvious change to the appearance without changing the model.

This is the basic shape of the scene

This is the basic wireframe for the scene

An example of one of the decals

Props

The next generation of props basically had the same production process - model-making, hard and soft edge generation and settings. It was essentially the same process. An example is here below:

Some examples of high modulus and low modulus

UV and reusable decals

I reused a lot of the elements throughout the scene. Some examples of this are shown below:

Reusing some of the wall UVs

Reusing some of the decals

Max wireframe model of the final

Maps

The maps I used were as follows: Diffuse, Specular, Normal, Displacement, Gloss detail, Detail (Gradient can be used to get this). Diffuse can work together with the Gloss and Specular channels, in the old version, but in the new version you can work it into the Normals channel. You can add the Displacement map in your own channel.

Some of the maps used to texture the scene

Getting the basic texture gradient

Importing files

You can set different IDs for different materials and objects. After I set the ID, I chose the file paths I wanted to save my work ready to import into CryEngine.