mapping a simple mesh

[mouj]

howdy !

well i'm no expert but i guess that you could unwrap the mesh, select the faces that result from the chamfer, make them planar then align/scale/rotate them to their respective neighboring faces so that you can paint them more easily and get rid of seams.

mouj

[Aaron Moore]

depends on the mapping coordinates of the object, but if you are doing a box projection mapping, the texture will tile at the edges... so you can make it a seamless texture...

its more about mapping coordinates then it is about the actual texture...

can you elaborate

[mouj]

howdy !

well i was thinking about the "usual" way around: define sets of faces, assign them MatId, then using MeshSelect modifier, assign planar maps to your sets of faces; with the Unwrap modifier, move around and probably scale, rotate and mirror your sets so that they form a nice uv map that you can then screen grab and paint in your fav paint prog.

With a cube you'll usually get 6 different Matid, so i would suggest including the chamfered faces in some of the sets, this will limit the number of Matids you'll have to deal with, and also will enable you to manipulate and paint these quite easily along with the other sets of faces, and thus you'll get a seamless texture with a little work and checking.

This texture does not need to be a hand-paintd one anyhow (could be a tiling map) but since you want it to be seamless, then i would suggest unwraping the object and so on, rather than applying a "generic" uv map for the whole object...

that said, keep in mind i'm no professional at this : )

hope it helps !

mouj

ps: i did this quick series of screengrabs, creating a similiar chamfered box and mapping it, if you want i'll post it here

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

I'll be happy to see how you pulled it off!!!!

[mouj]

howdy !

already then, it was done quite quickly, but here it is
first here is the box, chamfered (i'm using Max5).

[mouj]

after i converted it to Epoly, i go to polygon sub-object mode and remove smoothing groups, then start to define my sets of faces, here i have selected the bigger middle one, and with a "grow" selection, i get 9 faces selected, to which i assign Matid 1.

[mouj]

for easier viewing purposes, once i have a set of faces defined and Matid assigned to it, i hide this set, and continue on other faces. The goal is to have each set of faces mapped with planar uvs; i continue on the top face, and these two chamfered faces on it's sides, and this my Matid 2; hide it, go on to the other side of the box and so on... i finally get 6 Matids.

[mouj]

once i'm done assigning Matids, i use the Select Matids and select each set of faces one by one, to assign them uvmaps.

[mouj]

i've seen different ways of doing it, and i actually use different ways myself depending on the model, but here i'll just apply planar uv maps and set lenght and width to equal sizes, this way i'm quite sure all my sets will be mapped with same dimensions, so i won't have to operate different scales on each set, and i'll be able to scale them all at once.
As you can see, i've created a reference texture to help me here, using a plain checker map (you can use grids or whatever).

[mouj]

After i've assigned Matid 1's uv map, i use MeshSelect modifier to go on thru my Matids and apply planar uv maps to each of them, i use 128x128 planar maps for each, all you have to look for is the mapping axis for each set of faces

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

This is really a good place to start from, thanks a lot I.O.U.

I have one BIGGGGGGGGG question for you...

Once you got these things set up, how do you get rid of the seams. Do you export the the uv's with texporter and then paint in photoshop?

And by the way, I heard that it is possible to make seamless textures in photoshop using the lasso tool.

Thanks in advance!

[mouj]

then i collapse to Epoly, and add an unwrap modifier, with SelectFaces on i start to edit my uvs.
at first when you open the unwrap, all uvs are overlapping, what i want to do here is arrange my sets of faces in a way that will let me paint them alltogether easily.

[mouj]

i'm getting there, Tommy. I realise, while doing it, that mapping a tileable texture on this might not be as easy as mapping a hand-painted texture, but if i'm right, making a texture tile is really just a matter of cloning/brushing in photoshop, and then checking in Max, back and forth until your texture fits...

i stumbled upon and excellent tileable texture tutorial lately, take a look here:
http://grayson.cgworks.com/tutorials/tile/

the goal now is to have my sets arranged in an easy way, and have corresponding edges: select an edge, you'll see that all edges/vertices that are neighboring this edge will be highlighted in blue, so using mirroring commands you can really flatten the uvs exactly as you want them, with each vertex nextto it's neighbors, even if it's neighbors belong at first to another set of faces.
In the end, you'll eventually select all faces and set their Matid back to 1, so that your uvs once they're all done and clean, are just one set of faces... (i've also seen people not using Matids at all...)

[mouj]

now i'm done unwraping (almost), i screengrab the uvs, and then on to photoshop for a while.
I say that i'm almost done, because from now on and until i'm happy with the texture and the way i want it mapped, i keep giong back and forth from Max to Photoshop, detailing, moving stuff around a little, scaling uvs so they fit the map and so on...

here is the map i painted (quickly) in Ps, in green the uvs (that i keep on a top layer) show on top of it.
it's quite simple now, because the way the uvs are placed makes it very easy to paint from a face to another, including those chamfered faces.

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

Thanks mouj for the excellent help, couldn't have dun it without you!

I
O
U
bigtime

Great link by the way!, Let me try and i'll post a pic when i'm done

[mouj]

Please do, Tommy !
i'm no expert, this i've seen in tutorials, and took me a little while to get into it, but once you're in it really gets simple !

also i'm very glad if this can help you !

and here is a little light tracer/spotlight render of the cube, mapped...

mouj

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

One thing still wonders me, hoe do you get the edges as hown in the pic, to fit seamsly, what technique do you use in photoshop?

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

here it is...

[mouj]

well that's the point: if you plan on creating a tileable texture, say, mud or dirt, then you'll have to use brushes and cloning tool in Ps, but that really has nothing to do with the fact that the edges and chamfered faces are (somewhat) seamless.

It's really the way you'll manipulate the uvs that makes it all (imho): mirroring uvs and stuff, what you're trying to achieve is really flatteing the box in a way that the side faces are aligned to the top and front/back faces, their edges and vertices are neighboring, and this allows you to paint it easily.
with a single brush stroke you can paint on two neighboring faces and be sure that your stroke will look right, since theses faces are not only neighboring in the geometry of the object, but also in it's uvs... well my english might not be as good as to explain this clearly : )

but that's it, look at this pic, these are my uvs all set; i've selected an edge, and you can see highlitghted in blue it's neighboring edges, vertices and so on, right next to it, and each set of faces i've mirrored and move and rotated so as to eb able to paint along the two red axis i added: every time i paint a face i know exactly where are it's neighboring faces/vertices or edges, and thus i can paint very easily !

Does that make sense ? : )

[Wampa]

mouj : Are you god or who are you? Fantastic help. :thumbsup:

[mouj]

LOL !
there are many "gods" on this forum but i'm defenitely not one of them : )

here i just add a little personnal project i did testing out this mapping stuff (don't blame me for the model please)
here is the model textured

[mouj]

and following same technique, here is the map for it...
there's a lot to learn on uv mapping (optimizing and such), i'm not done on that (and far from being done learning) !

you can see that i placed, mirrored and so on my sets of faces so that it makes a simple-to-paint pattern, except for a couple isolated sets that were painted "on their own"

sorry for crappy image quality... there's too big otherwise : )

[Wampa]

I am beginer in 3DS MAX and texturing is my nightmare. Your textured model looks like very well. I hope that I will know texture as you.

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

I'm sorry, I dont understand, must be me being an idiot, sorry...

I'll trie to be more specific, here's a pic...


I understand the two axis principle, it is like you said obvious, because the polys are properly alligned. But if you wanted to make a scratch for example (like in the pic), which incorporates two neighbouring poly's as shown in this pic and the one before how would you do that. I fully understand the unwrapping part and so on but this keeps bugging me...

I
O
U

http://www.cgtalk.com/images/cgtalk/test.jpg

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

Hi mouj, I must be a giant idiot not to understand it but maybe I was not specific enough. I understand the two axis principle, it is obvious that polys that are properly alligned can be painted by a single stroke... But wat would you have to do when you wanted a scatch like in the pic above? In the picture there is no 'gap' between them, but in the uv-layout there is. I hope i'm specific enough!

[mouj]

well, in such a case, it's up to you to find the tools you need (brushes and stuff) in Ps, and just paint...
i mean, start your scratch on one face, if there is a gap in between neighboring faces... well, either fill in the gap if it makes it easier, or paint on face, and start painting the next face like there was no gap !
i reckon this is the tricky part of it, but anyhow i think it's quite impossible to flatten uvs and never get any "gaps" in between faces ... then again, i might be wrong ! : )

afraid i can't be of any more help on this one : )

mouj

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

Well mouj, let me say thanks for the incredible help, I won't forget it, so whenever YOU might need help, feel free to contact me at thomkroes@hotmail.com

I am getting more aware that the 3d-community is a bunch of willing to help people!!!!
i
o
u

[mouj]

i am very happy if this can be of any help to you or any other member of the community : )
if you want i can point you to many good tutorials (done by experts) on mapping, you might get furher answers !
please let me know !

now go on texturing !!! :buttrock:

mouj

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

ok i've unwrapped, my mesh like you said, do you think it is ok?

[mouj]

could you please post a screengrab of your unwrapped uvs ?

mouj

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

sorry, something went wrong, here it is....
http://www.cgtalk.com/images/cgtalk/unwrapped.jpg

[mouj]

looks like a good start to me, but you could use the "detach vertices" feature of the unwrap tool to detach the highlighted verts and stick them in a mirrored position to their opposites, but it's not necessary i think...

[Edgemaster]

Man I've been looking for this exact information...Thank You!! Now I am at one with max..........

[jadedchron]

Great information :thumbsup:

[Antilles]

There could be a lot of tutorials like this already in the texturing forum, but just a thought--maybe, just maybe, this has a place in the texturing thread as a quick tutorial? I wonder if it's a problem that its only for max users though...

See, Im afraid people who are looking for this info wouldn't think to check in the max forum, they would go to the texturing forum instead...

[jadedchron]

their loss then..:D jk

[Dave Black]

BTW, guys, in PhotoShop, you can copy and paste sets of polys, mirror and rotate them, and then paint across them to eliminate seams. Then you just delete the references. It works splendidly well.

Also, ya'l need to download Texporter from

www.maxplugins.de

Absolute must have. No more screen grabs. It makes a render(any size you want) of the UVW coordinates either in a wireframe, or shaded view. It also can color the polys by topology, and will flag polys red when they overlap.

Possibly the most important plugin you can get for max...and, it's free. Judging by the colors, Tommy is using it...and he's cool...don't you want to be like him?!

Go go go!

Neat little thread, BTW.

Good to see that everyone is getting more comfortable asking questions!

-3DZ

:D

[jadedchron]

hehe even with all of that help i still can't wrap my head around it. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh :scream: :scream: :scream:

[Dave Black]

jadedchron:

Don't worry, bro, it takes time. Personally, I think that UV mapping is one of the most difficult subjects to..um...wrap your head around. Just give it time, and look at as many tutorials and threads on the subject that you can. Try mapping a box, and then more and more complex objects.

Also, conceptually, just think of it this way:

You've made a model. Now, you want to draw on it. In real life, if it was a scupture, you could just paint right on it. But in 3d CG, everything has to be all nice and flat because we have to paint on a 2d bitmap that will be wrapped around the mesh.. So UNwraping the mesh is just laying it all out flat, and telling the model how to wrap 2d images around it.

Simple enough, right? Hehehe.

By selecting a mapping type, like planer, or cylindrical, you are choosing the best type for the particular object. Almost everything can be mapped with planar mapping, but you can use the other types to save time.

There is another interesting thread over here:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40864&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

And check the texturing forum for tutorials and general tips.

If you have any questions, I'm sure we can help out. :D

Just keep at it, man...You'll get it...or it'l make your head pop like a melon. Either way, you win...wait...no..

-3DZ

:D

[Martijn Wijmer]

Someone mentioned Textporter. Great plug-in, but works even better with Schilli skinner. Can't believe no one mentioned it here. It's almost the same approach mouj uses, only now it works as a plug-in, and simplifies some actions.

Link to Scilliskinner (With tut's and download area) (http://www.chilliweb.co.uk/chilliskinner/)

[jadedchron]

yeah i'm past the melon poppin' part :D . i had a question tho.. i'm workin on a texture for a game (unreal- pistol gun model) . i'm mapping it in 3dmax.. once i get the map layed out and then texture it in photoshop..am i going to be able to just send the modeler the the texture file? and it'llline up properly? thx dudes

checkin out chilliskin ;z

[mouj]

Howdy folks !

Yep, jadedchron, once your map will be done, apply it to your model in max, then export the model to whatever format you want/need, your map is not included in the object file but refered to, so you'll be able to give away model and texture and they'll fit fine...

for exemple, say you want to export to .3ds, the textures mapped onto the objects you're exporting are renamed (shorter) and refered to in the object file, as well as your uvw coordinates; so in other words, keeping both the object and it's map(s) in the same directory or so will make it work fine.

Once you've set your uvs, they'll stay this way unless you modify them or modify the geometry of your object, it's like uvs are "baked" into the object, so your texture, if painted over uvs, should always fit (once again, unless you modify the object itself).

As for Texporter or ChilliSkinner, they are indeed worth to look at, and i tend to use them often, eventhought screengrabbing i think works like a charm :hmm:

mouj

[jadedchron]

did you already explain screengrab? i've tried texporter and chilli. i'd like to see your method of madness..

oh and thanks for the info.. i figured that'd be the case. now i know :beer:

[mouj]

yup !

well it's not much of a method, just that rather than getting Textporter to create my uvs map, i'll just maximise unwrap window (being in 1280x1024 screen res i can grab images up to 900x900 pxl), and paste that into a new image in Ps.

Once you've grabbed your screen, just open or switch back to Ps and create a new image: it will be the size of what's in your clipboard, in this case your screengrab... also would work for, say, any vector stuff that you'd copy/paste from Illustrator, and so on... well there are a couple issues on this, thing is, it works just fine : )
Then i'll just cut my uvs from the screengrab, usually scale it down a bit (paint on a 740x740 then scale it down again if needed). That way i end up with a "bottom" layer (of any color) and a top "layer" with only my uv's edges, which i'll use as guides...

Still, a plug like Textporter has many nice features, like showing edges or not, fill in colors the different matids, show overlaps and so on which make it a good tool for that, plus the fact that you can decide the size of the exported picture.

3DZealot has got the idea right better than i could explain it, the only thing i could add is, as you go on and on mapping objects, you'll eventually find that uvs are just a set of faces/edges and vertices that you can manipulate any way you want, scale, mirror and move around to get where you want with your map, and in the unwrap tool, nothing holds you from detaching vertices, stitchnig them back together and so on.... what i mean is, don't be afraid to mess it up a little if you need to, there is always way to undo things, reset your uvs if they're really really bad... and to change things if they please you...

Even if you find you need to change geometry of the object once uvs have been done, just collapse everything, go to faces subobject, select all and assign a matid of 1, and from then assign diff matids to the geometry you're changing: that way what has been unwrapped once is still good, and you can focus on what's new....

hope this can help !

mouj

[jadedchron]

thanks mouj. people like you put a damper on the tylenol business.. and less headaches for me;)

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