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Shen
12-29-2001, 08:42 PM
I've tried to tell myself otherwise... but i suck at texturing. I want to do things that i cant. I'm sure others fall victim to this too, but i would love some help with this problem. I have a complex object and would like to texture it, but the basic elements of uvw mapping i know don't even fall short of my desired texturing job. What would make this easy is if i could see the object spread over a 2d plane and then could paint over that, since i dont have fancy things like Body Paint 3D. I am willing to bet something like this is possible. If anyone can tell me if it is or if there is a better and easier (or if its really a good way harder) approach to this, your help would be appriciated.
LFShade
12-30-2001, 05:59 AM
I'm working on a tutorial for this currently, but I'll try to summarize the way I go about mapping. It works for anything from simple to complex objects.

The workflow is as follows:

1. Set matID's. You want to determine sets of faces that can be efficiently mapped with one of the standard mapping types. I try to only use planar and cylindrical, myself. Assign unique material ID's to each of these sets of faces. Take notes -- later on you'll need to remember which matID's belong to which face sets.

On humanoid characters I generally separate into the following groups: Head & neck (cylindrical), chest & stomach (planar), back (planar), arms (cylindrical), back of the hands (planar), palms (planar), legs (cylindrical), tops of the feet (planar), soles of the feet (planar).

2. Apply mapping. Select one of your face sets (use select by matID) and apply the preferred mapping type to it.

3. UVW Unwrap. Apply this modifier above the mapping modifier, so it's still just affecting the selected faces. Tweak the map coordinates for good results. Here's where you need to make a decision: will the whole object be mapped by a single image, or will multiple maps be used? If using a single map, you'll need to scale down all the UV's and put them in a unique position on the texture space. Otherwise, it's o.k. if they take up the whole space.

4. Collapse the stack. When you collapse the modifier stack, the object retains the mapping coordinates you have assigned. Doesn't matter how many times you collapse, your mapping remains unchanged. This is a cool feature!

5. Repeat. Go through steps 2 - 4 for each face set you defined in step 1. The end result is a well-mapped object, ready for painting.

6. Texporter. It's a free plugin you can find just about anywhere free plugins are gathered. I got it from max3d.3dluvr.com (http://max3d.3dluvr.com). When installed, you can find it on the Utilities panel. It has all sorts of options for outputting your map coordinates as wireframe template bitmaps. How you use it will depend, again, on whether you're going to use a single map, or map each part individually.

If you decided to use a single map, just make sure "use material ID" is unchecked, input the size you'd like your map to be, and hit GO! (actually, I'm not sure what the button really says...you can figure it out). If you're mapping each part separately, you will need to check "use material ID", and generate templates for each matID you defined in step 1.

Voila! You should now have a template, or set of templates, that you can take over to Photoshop and paint away on.

Good luck!
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