In this quick tutorial you’ll learn how to create a realistic rock texture and apply it to a low-poly model. The texture you’ll create is completely procedural and requires nothing more than 3DS Max. You’ll pick-up some creative uses for the smoke map and learn how to control map-based displacements.

Pay special attention to the text from this particular tutorial. Procedural texturing in 3DS Max usually means maps within maps within maps. Anyone can easily miss something and agonize over what’s wrong.

What you’ll get:

Import the rock model

First of all download and import this simple rock model. The download is an Autodesk FBX file. Just drag it into your 3DS Max viewport and click import.

1/3 The diffuse texture

Hit alt+w on the Camera view to maximize it. We won’t be needing the other views for this tutorial. Open 3DS Max’s material editor {} by pressing the “M” key and select an empty slot. Assign {} the material to the rock. Click the Diffuse check-box and assign a smoke map to it.

The Smoke map’s default settings are a good starting point. Now assign a noise map to the black slot of the Smoke map.

Set the noise map’s size to 1.0 and leave the other settings as given. Also click the black color swatch and change it to a dark grey (a value of 40) and set the white swatch to a much lighter shade of grey (a value of 168).

Click the “Go to parent” {} button and return to the Smoke map. Add a noise map to the white map this time. Set the noise map’s size to 1.0, the black color to a dark green and the white one to a really dark brownish tone.

We can now do a quick render to see what we’ve got so far. Hit F10 and click on render.

Although this is close to what we want to achieve, it’s really bland and doesn’t look realistic at all. It needs some form of weathering effects.

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