A Tutorial by Todd Daniele

For this tutorial we will be using Photoshop 7 for texture generation.
Check earlier versions for the availablity of the
required “Herringbone 2” Pattern preset.

(For those of you that do not have the Preset the bump map is at the bottom of this page.)

In Photoshop, create a new document, I will be using 800x600 for this tutorial.
With the new document open, create a new layer, and select the paintbucket tool
from the toolbar.
Under the "Fill" option, select “pattern”.
Now from the pattern menu, search for the pattern named
“Herringbone 2”.

“Fill” the new layer you created with this pattern.
The pattern is a bit small for our purposes, so
we will scale the layer to make the herringbone
pattern a bit bigger. For this example I scaled the HxW 200%

**Sample swatches only, Document should be 800x600**

Once we have the pattern scaled, we will then use the “CTRL” and “I” keys
of the keyboard to invert the the colors of the pattern.
When using a bump map, white areas are raised, while black
areas are recessed. This is the reason for inverting the map.

Collapse the layers, and save the document as a jpeg, tiff(or whatever you prefer.)

That’s it for photoshop, let’s move to max.

In max, create a spline with the shape of your desired wire/ hose.
Make the spline renderable, check the “display render mesh”,
“generate mapping coordinates”, and “renderable” boxes.
Scale the “Thickness” value to an appropriate size for your scene.
You may also need to up the interpolation value if your wire/hose is curvy.
Open your material editor.

Create a Raytrace material set to Phong.
Ambient, Diffuse,Reflect,Luminosity, and Transparency set to black.
Set the Specular level to 120, and the glossiness to 65. Scroll down to the maps rollout.
Click on the “Bump” slot. Select bitmap as the type,
and when prompted select the “bump” bitmap we just created in photoshop.
For my sample I used tile values of U .4, and V 3.2, and a bump value of 30.
Use the same map in the diffuse slot, with the same values.
Click on the “Reflect” slot, and choose falloff as the type.
Set the falloff to Perpendicular Parallel.
Apply your material to the spline object(hose).

A good way to get feedback on the scale of the map
is to click the “show in viewport” button
on your material editor. So let's go back to our bump slot in the maps rollout,
click on “Bump” and then click the “show in viewport” button.
There should now be a displayed representation of your map on the spline
if you are using a shaded viewport setting.
Adjusting the U, and V values of the bump map
will update the viewport in real time.
Adjust until the scale of your map appears to fit
with your wire/hose object.
That’s it!
Before rendering, keep in mind that the “chrome” material
needs an environment to reflect,
without something to reflect, it will not look right.
For my example I used an HDR map set to spherical in the environment slot,
a skylight, and a spot light were used for lighting, and shadows.

Good luck, and have fun!

Questions or comments about this tutorial? Go here!