ok ill zip an post it up for you,
but you are right in saying It sounds to me like you are applying a lot of different materials with
diffuse maps to the mesh.
thats what ive been doin.
i dunno how to use just one textur map. i know in med you can get it to.
make a bmp tempplate to draw a texture map on to.
but when i tryed that aproch. the model textured.
but on the side of its legs arms an head it was patchy all down one side.
where it wasant being rapped for some reaason.
thats why i been trying it the way i have.

rappin a 2d image of a drwn char* should be fairly simple.

but im having these problems

im using 3d max 7.

can you post files to this site?

Someone with more 3DGS experience than me may be better able
to adress the multiple texture issue. I've always just used 1.

I'm not sure if max 7 can render out a uvw template as an image
file. In max 8 I select "Edit..." under "-Parameters" from the uvw
unwrap modifer. In the edit window, select tools->render uvw template,
set the size and file type, and then export it. If you can't do this in 7,
(I know for certain you can't in versions prior to and including 6),
you will need to get texporter. Its free and does pretty much the same thing,
and actually it has a few features that max 8 doesn't have.

However you do it, open the saved template in photoshop and then you
can do your drawing on different layers. If you've never done this before, it
can be pretty tedious at first, but with some practice, you'll get some awesome
results.

Don't know about uploading to the forum. I've just always uploaded to my
website and provided a link.

yea im new to this.
so what you saying is if i load my model up into textporter.
i cant make the model texture that way.

well ill have a look at textporter and see if that helps.

thanks for the advise.

ps where do you get textporter from?

Here is the link:
http://www.cuneytozdas.com/software/3dsmax/#Texporter

Yes, that's pretty much it. Think of it like you're working
as a clothing designer in reverse. You start with a mesh,
an create a "pattern" through a process of uvw mapping and
uvw unwrap. What you will be exporting will be the pattern.
You can use a paint program like photoshop and create your
image based of this pattern.

I'm not sure if the tutorials are the same in max 7 and 8, but you may
want to check to see if you have the "Mapping a Character" tutorial.
I can find it in max 8 under help->tutorials, from the menu tree
select specialized->game design->mapping a character.

If this is the first time you've done this, you're about to enter
a very exciting world!!!!

so what is the prosess.

1 load the model
2 apply uvw mapping
3 uvw unwrap

can you run though things like this for me so i have a btter understanding of what to do

cheers..

Unfortunately its one of things that is best described by
seeing someone actually do it or having some other
visual aid like in a tutorial. The one that I mentioned that
comes in 3d max is pretty good. It is difference in that
it is creating the uvw mapping from within the unwrap modifier
itself. Sometimes this is the fastest way to map out individual
or groups of faces, but if you have a really complex model, things
can get really messy. That’s why I usually do it by applying the
uvw maps at the poly level and then add the unwrap modifier to the model
when I’m done. In the end, both do exactly the same thing.

There are a few tutorials on uvw unwrapping online, but not
a lot. You may also want to check out the 3D Buzz site.
A free registration will give you access to the “Video Training”
page, which has loads of free video tutorials. Don’t know
what is covered as far as 3ds max goes, but they have a lot of
them. I’ve checked out the ones on the Unreal Editor, and
they were pretty good.

Once you get started, if you have any questions and have
the means of uploading your project files, I will do my
best to help you as much as I can.

Just to give you an idea of what things will look like, I
posted some images here:

www.ionstudios.net/uvw

The top image is a screen shot of the uvw unwrap editor
window in 3d max, with the mapping coordinates of the interior and
exterior of the truck. The wheels were done separately.
The green and white lines are what you would export out to use
in Photoshop or some other paint program. I used the exported
template to create the graphics that you see in the screen
shot.

The bottom image is the final render from within 3ds max.

BTW: this was not the most effecient use of texture space, there
are alot of unused pixels in this example. But I only had a week to
get the whole thing done (evil work deadlines ) so its not too bad.

Good Luck!