Introduction

I wrote this tutorial because I've seen a lot of Blueprint Setup's for 3D Studio Max but not this way and wanted to share my technique. The advantage of using this technique is that you may use the blueprints as a transparent 2D Map where you can specify any colour lines you like.

This will also show some advanced techniques for mapping the materials onto a box rather than using 4 planes like some other tutorials may use.

Part 1 - Photoshop

In this part you will learn how to setup the images using Photoshop to be then used as blueprints with 3D Studio Max.

Photoshop 01
 

First open your blueprint into Photoshop.

Photoshop 02
 

Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and cut out all the different objects and paste them as a new workfile. I have labeled each one eg. map_side, map_top, map_front, map_rear.


Photoshop 03


Now you have each view as its own workfile.

Photoshop 04
 

Using the eraser tool I remove any unwanted areas such as the titles, numbers and lines.