Best Way to Apply Multiple Materials w/Different Scales on a Single Mesh-Terrain

[luis.lab]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice from the community on the most efficient way to apply multiple materials to a single mesh in 3ds Max — specifically for a terrain.

My goal is to have full control over different zones of the mesh with different materials (grass, gravel, rock, etc.), each with its own texture scale.
I come from Cinema 4D, I used to stack multiple material tags and control blending with vertex maps, which worked quite ok.

In 3ds Max, I’ve tried using Corona Layered Material, but I’m running into issues with controlling texture scales individually. It seems a bit clunky for this purpose, and I wonder if I’m missing a better workflow.

Does anyone have tips or suggestions? Maybe a better material setup or a modifier-based workflow?

Thanks so much in advance for any help!

[CharlyRT]

In 3ds Max we have Multi/Sub-Object material where we can use different materials in a single object, assigned via poly/element ID.
To control individually the mapping of the material you should have to assign a map channel to each texture in each material and use multiple UVWmap modifier with the desired map channel, theres no need to assing different channel if its behaivior is the same, you can control multiple materials with a single uvwmap.
Hope this helps.

[Tom]

... you should have to assign a map channel to each texture in each material and use multiple UVWmap modifier with the desired map channel

Or you could also use a CoronaTriplanar texture on each sub-material to control different mappings per sub-material, as CoronaTriplanar map has precedence over UVWmap modifiers.

[CharlyRT]

Or you could also use a CoronaTriplanar texture on each sub-material to control different mappings per sub-material, as CoronaTriplanar map has precedence over UVWmap modifiers.

Youre totally right, I always forget to use that map, that would be the simplest way without worring which map has which channel, you can connect multiple maps in a single Triplanar with Additional Outputs.

[luis.lab]

Hello guys!
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation — that really helps clarify things, especially the use of CoronaTriplanar. I’ll definitely give that a try!

I was also wondering — is there a way to use vertex maps (or something similar in 3ds Max) to blend between the different textures more smoothly?
Something like soft transitions between grass, gravel, and rocks, instead of hard material ID cuts?

Thanks again for all the help and insights!
Best

[romullus]

I was also wondering — is there a way to use vertex maps (or something similar in 3ds Max) to blend between the different textures more smoothly?
Something like soft transitions between grass, gravel, and rocks, instead of hard material ID cuts?

Yes, 3ds Max supports vertex colours. You can paint them on the model directly in the viewport (add vertex paint modifier for that) and use them in shading, for example as a blend mask (look for vertex color map).

[Tom]

I was also wondering — is there a way to use vertex maps (or something similar in 3ds Max) to blend between the different textures more smoothly?
Something like soft transitions between grass, gravel, and rocks, instead of hard material ID cuts?

Another approach is to paint a black and white mask in Photoshop, and applying it as a mask in a CoronaLayeredMtl.