Page 864 - Kitab3DsMax

Part VII: Advanced Materials
Working with channels is a very efficient way to interface with the gaming engine, but a sloppy game devel-
oper can introduce a model to the game engine with all sorts of unneeded or exaggerated channels. If this
happens, the game engine can ignore the extra channels and get the wrong information, which can cause
your hero to march off into battle without a weapon. Worse, it can crash the system.
To prevent problems and to streamline the number of channels that are included with game models, Max
includes a Map Channel Info editor that you can use to manipulate the various channel data. This editor,
shown in Figure 33.1, can be opened using the Tools ➪ Channel Info menu command.
FIGURE 33.1
The Map Channel Info dialog box lets you edit channel data.

Using the Map Channel Info dialog box

The Map Channel Info dialog box shows lots of information, including the Object Name; its ID; its Channel
Name; the number of Vertices, Faces, and Dead Vertices (unattached vertices); and its Size. With this infor-
mation, you can quickly determine which channels are taking up the most space and eliminate them.
All objects include some default channels for mesh, which holds the geometry; vsel, which holds the
selected vertices; -2:Alpha, which holds the alpha channel information; -1:Illum, which holds illumination
values; and channel 0:vc, which holds vertex color information. Objects also include at least one default
map channel (even if it is empty). These channels cannot be deleted.
Cross-Ref
Vertex colors are covered along with painting on objects in Chapter 18, “Creating Compound Materials and Using
Material Modifiers.” n
The interface lets you Copy and Paste selected channels. You can give each channel a name with the Name
button. Beneath the Copy button, text appears that lists the information currently copied in the Copy
Buffer. Selected channels can be copied only between channels that have the same number of vertices.
The Clear button clears out the selected channels, but you cannot clear a map channel if there is another
map channel above it. The Add button adds a new map channel to the object. Objects can hold as many as
99 map channels. The Clear and Add buttons also apply UVW Mapping Clear or UVW Mapping Add modi-
fiers to the Modifier Stack. The Paste command also adds a modifier. These modifiers are convenient
because they can easily be removed or reordered in the Stack. If changes have been made in the Modifier
Stack, the Update button reflects these changes in the Map Channel Info dialog box.

816