While there is nothing common when it comes to our customers, we often find that their questions center around some common issues. We’ve collected a few of the more frequently asked questions, along with their solutions, to help our artists make their models more attractive to potential customers.
Forging a successful relationship with customers, and possibly becoming their go-to artist, is easy. When a customer purchases one of your models, make sure that what you deliver meets their expectations.
WireFrames
“Why are there no wireframes available for the model that I want?”
This is a big complaint that we receive from customers, since some of the products on TurboSquid do not have wireframes. Our research shows that the more effort you put into showcasing your work, the more likely you are to grab the attention of a potential customer (which only leads to more sales).
Suggested Solution: The customers would really like to see what they are purchasing. We have YouTube videos online to show you how to set up your model to render the wireframes.
Texture Sizes
“Where can I find the texture sizes that are being used on this model?”
Another common issue for our customers is missing information. Buying a model can be a big purchase, and no one wants to take a risk in buying a product that won’t work for their needs. The more information you provide, the more the customer can trust that your model is exactly what they’re looking for.
Suggested Solution: Even if you have multiple textures, be sure to list the sizes in your description to help boost sales. The more information a customer has, the more likely they are to return to your catalog.
Absolute Paths
“Where are the missing elements within the model I just purchased?“
Sometimes a model will generate a “missing textures” error when a customer loads or renders it. Most of the time, the issue is with a naming convention rather than an actual missing texture.
Suggested Solution: When you create a model and use textures from your computer, most programs will use a specific path on your computer, for instance, C:\Users\example\My Models\TurboSquid.jpg. Before you publish your model, we ask that you strip these paths to say: TurboSquid.jpg. When a customer opens a model, this will prevent a missing textures error.
Check out our latest artist tutorial especially useful for those working through the steps to submit models for CheckMate Pro certification. The specification states (in item 2.1.1) that there can be no Isolated Vertices found in models submitted for certification. We hope this video will serve as a useful guide for 3D artists to find and fix Isolated Vertices using xView in 3ds Max 2010 or later prior, moving them closer to submitting their models for consideration.
Find “xView” in the drop-down menu and once your mouse is over it another set of options will appear and you want to select “Isolated Vertices”.
Go to “Customize”, then “Units Setup…”, and select “Generic Units” so that it matches our CheckMate script.
Select the model.
Go to the bottom and select “[Click Here To Update]”. All Isolated Vertices will appear in green.
Select the object with Isolated Vertices that you would like to fix, then again select “[Click Here To Update]” at the bottom.
Go to the modify tab, and under “Selection” choose “Vertex”.
To fix the Isolated Vertices you want to go to the bottom and right-click where it says “[Isolated Vertices: # Vertices]” and choose “Select Results”.
Got 5 Minutes? Then you have time for this video outlining how to find and fix overlapping Vertices using xView in 3ds Max 2010 or later.
Find “xView” in the drop-down menu and once your mouse is over it another set of options will appear and you want to select “Overlapping Faces”.
Go to “Customize”, then “Units Setup…”, and select “Generic Units” so that it matches our CheckMate script.
Then, at the bottom click where it says “[Click Here To Configure]”.
Change the “Tolerance:” to 0.0001.
Select the model.
Some versions will automatically show you the Overlapping Vertices, if not, go to the bottom and select “[Click Here To Update]”. All Overlapping Vertices will appear in green.
Choose the Overlapping Vertices that you would like to fix, then go to the modify tab, and under “Selection” choose “Vertex”.
Click and drag to select the Overlapping Vertices that you chose to fix.
On the modify panel, click the settings button next to the “Weld” button and set your “Weld Threshold” to what you would like. I did 0.001.
Then, click the “Weld” button.
In most cases that will work. However, if that does not work then it probably means that there are unnecessary Overlapping Faces that need to be removed. The next few steps will explain how to fix this issue:
Make sure the Overlapping Vertices that you have chosen to fix are selected, then right-click and select “Convert to Face”.
Then, alt+click to deselect all the faces that you can see that have been highlighted in red.
Click delete to delete the unneeded Overlapping Faces.
Repeat steps 7-10.
That is how you find and fix overlapping vertices using xView in 3ds Max 2010 or later.
This video will show you how to find and fix overlapping faces using xView in 3ds Max 2010 or later.
Select the model.
If grouped, ungroup the model.
Go to “Customize”, then “Units Setup…”, and select “Generic Units” so that it matches our CheckMate script.
Find “xView” in the drop-down menu and once your mouse is over it another set of options will appear and you want to select “Overlapping Faces”.
Again, make sure the model is selected, then at the bottom click where it says “[Click Here To Configure]”.
Change the “Tolerance:” to 0.0001.
Choose an overlapping face that you would like to fix, then go to the modify tab, and under “Selection” choose “Polygon”.
Select the overlapping face that you chose to fix and it should highlight in red or be outlined in red.
Now there are two options to fix the overlapping faces:
You can choose “Select and Move” and move the X-coordinate (or whatever coordinate is appropriate) out slightly, or
At the bottom, select “Absolute Mode Transform Type-In” and enter in the X-coordinate (or whatever coordinate is appropriate) how much you want the face to move out from its original location (in the video I moved it out 0.01).
Remember that CheckMate Scripts Contest we ran, not so long ago? Well, if you missed it, there was a winner and his script is pretty spectacular. See it in action in this video tutorial entitled “Rendering a Turntable using the POPA_3D CheckMate Script” (for a mental ray or Scanline file). The steps followed in the video are also outlined below:
Download the POPA_3D CheckMate Script from the following link: http://www.turbosquid.com/CheckMateTools/ and select: 3ds Max PRO/LITE Tool
Installation instructions are included. (Note: if you are using the 64-bit 3ds Max make sure that you are installing the script in the Program Files folder, and not the Program Files (x86) folder.)
Open your file and setup a camera the way you would like your turntable to render.
Go to the “CheckMate Tools By POPA_3D” Script and scroll to the bottom.
Under “Render:” > “Turntable Directory:”, select the “…” button and choose where you want your turntable to save.
Under “Turntable Settings:” > “Frames Count:”, select 36 or 72 Frames. (If you have one object you can check “Center Camera Target On Animated Objects”.)
Then, move the objects from the “Objects list” to the “Animated Objects list” by using the “>>” button.
Under “Modes:” choose “Render Turntable Using Current Settings”.
Under “Select Camera(s):” use the drop down to choose the camera that you want to use.
Under “Output Size:”, select “1200×1200”.
Click “Start Render!” and choose “Yes” when the Pop-up window asks about the TurboSmooth and MeshSmooth Modifiers.
Once this finishes, go to step 2 in the TurboSquid Publisher and select “Upload Turntable”, then “ctrl+a” to select all of the turntable renders, then press “Enter”.
This quick tutorial walks through the process of making a wireframe thumbnail using Scanline or mental ray for 3ds Max. The steps presented in the video are outlined below.
Open 3ds Max file.
If it’s a Scanline file, change renderer to mental ray.
Go to the material editor (m).
Change the material from “Standard” to “Composite” by pressing the button that says “Standard” and choosing “Composite” from the material drop down.
Select the “Base Material:” and by changing the diffuse color you can control the wireframe background color.
Select “Go to Parent”.
Next to “Mat. 1:” select the “None” button and change it to a standard material from the material drop down (this will take you to the screen where you can control the wireframes).
Check “Wire” under the “Sharer Basic Parameters”
Adjust the wire color by changing the diffuse color.
Under “Extended Parameters”, you can change the wire size in the top right corner.
Select the model, and apply the wireframe material to the model by dragging and dropping or by clicking on “Assign Material to Selection”.
To change the thumbnail background you can go to the “Rendering” drop down and choose “Environment” and select the box under “Color:” to adjust the color to your liking.
Render your wireframe thumbnail by going to “Render Production” at the top right.
Save your render by selecting save image.
Remember: For CheckMate Pro the wireframe thumbnail background must be of neutral tone and distinctively different than the non-wireframe images. And, the wire color must be black, white, or gray. Other colors are allowed at TurboSquid Inspector discretion.
