Materials and Mapping Tutorials > Introduction to Materials and Mapping >
Create a Material for the Terrain: Cropping a Texture

The terrain is an oblong of undeveloped land behind the terrace. The house rests partly on the terrace, and partly on the terrain.

Set up the lesson:

- Continue from the previous lesson, or open med_villa_pool_mapped.max.

Create the terrain material:

1. In the Slate Material Editor, drag a new Arch & Design material from the Browser into the active View. Double-click the new material node so you can see its parameters. Name this material Terrain.
2. On the Templates rollout, open the drop-down list of templates, and choose Matte Finish.
3. Assign a Bitmap to the Diffuse Color Map component of the Terrain material node.

   3ds Max Design opens a file dialog.

4. In the file dialog, browse to the \sceneassets\images folder. Choose the file terrain.jpg and click Open.

   The terrain texture

5. In the Top viewport, click to select the terrain object.

   The terrain is easiest to see if the viewport is shaded. If it isn’t, press F3 to turn on shading.

   Terrain object selected in the Top viewport

6. On the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click (Show Shaded Material In Viewport) to turn it on. (If you use a legacy viewport driver, this button's tooltip reads, "Show Standard Map In Viewport.")
7. Click the Terrain material node to make it active, then on the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click (Assign Material To Selection).

   The map doesn’t appear in viewports yet because the terrain object is also an editable mesh, and requires a mapping modifier.

Adjust the mapping:

1. On the Modify panel, choose UVW Map from the Modifier List drop-down list.

   Planar mapping is appropriate again, in the case of the terrain.

   On the UVW Map Parameters rollout, turn off Real-World Map Size.

   Now the map is visible in shaded viewports.

2. Double-click the Bitmap node so you can see its parameters.
3. On the Coordinates rollout, turn off Use Real-World Scale.

   The map still appears to be squashed: This is because the original texture is square, while the terrain object is oblong. You can fix this by cropping the map.

4. In the Bitmap Parameters rollout Cropping/Placement group, click the View Image button.

   3ds Max Design opens a Specify Cropping/Placement dialog. It displays the map, surrounded by a red box with square handles. You can move the box, or use the handles to resize it.

5. In the Specify Cropping/Placement dialog, drag the handle in the middle of the lower edge upward, until the cropping box encloses only about the upper quarter of the texture.
6. Close the Specify Cropping/Placement dialog.
7. In the Material Editor, in the Bitmap Parameters rollout Cropping/Placement group, click Apply to turn it on and apply the cropping. (Make sure Crop and not Place is the option chosen just below the Apply toggle.)

   Now the terrain map fits the terrain object.

8. In the Slate Material Editor, line the Terrain nodes up with the other materials you’ve already created, then minimize the material node.

Save your work:

- Save the scene as my_villa_terrain.max.

Next

Create a Material for the Vase: Using Cylindrical Projection