texturing a head

[Ls3D]

Unwrap UVW is very powerfull if you get the lay of the land.
A common technique (in max) is to screen capture the UVW interface and then paint over it in photoshop. So yes it is worth consideration and investigation, including its use to offset co-ordinates and fine tune how skins map on low poly characters.

What does your map look like? Or,.. what are you trying to illustrate with textures?

What does the grey model look like now? Looks a bit light in the preview - but you could be rendering a higher iteration..

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com

[LFShade]

Well, it's just one way, but here's what I'd do:

1. assign a unique material ID to the inside of the mouth
2. do the same for the ears (both ears w/same ID)
3. one more unique ID for the top of the head
4. select the rest of the faces and apply cylindrical mapping
5. apply unwrap UVW and tweak the coordinates to suit, laying them out so that there's a bit of room left for the other parts.
6. collapse the stack

Then I'd just repeat the process for the ears, mouth, and top of the head. Probably planar mapping for the ears and head-top and cylindrical mapping for the mouth, laying each new part out in the UVW unwrap editor to occupy its own space on the map. Then I'd use texporter to output the template. I'd probably paint the maps in Photoshop; I find those 3D paint applications kind of klunky, and sort of hard to use without a second monitor to throw tool palletes and stuff onto.

[isome]

firstly, thanks for the replies, very helpful indeed...

the mesh is being rendered at a higher interation, i can post if you like...

so basically, you both just suggest dealing directly w/uvw coordinates and then photoshop the puppy? no fancy apps or specialized packages. ok. sounds sweet, and not as expensive an option as bodypaint or somesuch...

[xynaria]

One thing to bear in mind to make life easier with UV unwrap is to look at the gizmo and move it if neccessary. Where your Mesh seam will be is where the green line is on the gizmo. The reason why what LF Shade suggests is good is that it also prevents Mesh overlaps so you can see better what you are doing. :)

[zkydz]

I prefer to use composite materials with masks to blend the areas over the stretch. This allows for a mixture of mapping types as well as direct placement anywhere on a mesh. I've really been able to get satisfying results.

zkydz

[Triadis]

Here's a good tut. It's the last one:

http://www.3d-io.com/archive/background/tutorials/index.htm

-Alex

[brentlowrie]

I had a hell of a time with mapping until Kees Rijnen fed me an epiphamy.

Because your guy is very wide due to the ears you may want to apply a cylindrical UV Map oriented so the open ends are to left and right of the ears with the seam at the back of the head. This way, you will get the least distortion on the face and ears. Apply a UV Unwrap, click edit and take a screen shot or use Texporter, there are some good tuts there too (find it at http://www.cuneytozdas.com/software/max/texporter/
bring that image into Photoshop or the like and paint your texture aon a separate layer below the map image.
Set the map image to Multiply or reduce the transparency. When you have some identifiable features painted, save it and create a material with it in max.
Make sure your Material IDs are the same in the mat and UV Map.
Appy the material to the head.
Click edit in the UV Unwrap and adjust the verts to fine tune the fit.
Trial and error is the best teacher. So try try again. Any one or a combination othe techniques here should get you the results you want. Sorry if I missed a step. One of the others will pick up on it if I did. Good Luck...

[isome]

oh, man, thanks so much, guys...i'm going to hit all of those links and post an update sometime this week...hopefully something that works...

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