Architecture UV Mapping

[johnnyMac]

...bueller ...bueller ...anyone? ...anyone?

[BigSky]

If I understand you right, well, no there is nothing wrong in your instance on making the uv's big to scale the texture.
The u.v. 1:1 thing is there to help with texture painting with multiple uv projections, etc. With one all purpose wrap around map like yours, there's no problem (in fact, when you make a cube poly primitive, open the uv texture editor, and you'll see that the uvs are outside 1.1)

Of course, if you do scale the uv's, theres' nothing wrong with that because you can go into the place 2d texture node and manipulate the "repeat u,v" option. Same result, different workflow.

On a 3d texture, you have "scale" which does the same thing across the projection.


Different ways to skin the same cat. Tee hee.

By the way, cubic maps work fine in Maya.

:shrug:

[DeathBrain]

Check this out (http://zj.deathfall.com/texturecomposition2.htm) ( scroll it down to Box Projection section ) I hope it helps :)

[johnnyMac]

BigSky - thanks for your help. i think i tried to skin the cat but only ended up dunking it in water and he didnt like that. i have my uv's inside the 0-1 texture space. the repeat 2d repeat uv option works great but what were you explaining about 3d? if i had created the texture as a 3d instead then would that have been better? could you explain your method of box mapping?

DeathBrain - i'm checking out the link you sent right now. i'll get back with you. thanks for replying.

[johnnyMac]

so here's my next task. uv'ing the shingles on the roof. how can i do this with box mapping?

http://www.johnmcneal.com/cgtalk/condo.jpg

[BigSky]

Probably not.

You'd best do a whole bunch of planar projections...or an auto map and do a bit of cutting and stitching.

I guess you've a tiling texture of 1 shingle?

select a face (i'm assuming each roof plane is not subdivided) or pair (a lot of your roof is mirrored):
editPolygons>texture>planarMap.
Again you'll have to scale the u'vs.

...or use a 3d texture (make sure you create it >as projection). Here, you'll see all of your familiar Lightwave tools for textures: Spherical, Cylindrical, etc. For the roof job, depending upon whether you can get away with a quick and nasty from your camera distance, dof, etc, you could try Tri-Planar projection. It will work quite well. Edges will be a problem, however.

You may get a whole bunch from this thread:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=76206



:)

[johnnyMac]

thanks for all the help. i'm trying the 3d projection. i'm not sure i understand if you still need to uv map the object by doing this but i'm doing some tests now.

[BigSky]

i'm not sure i understand if you still need to uv map the object by doing this

no, you don't.

[DeathBrain]

Are those roof separated from each other ?
If yes, then it would be easier to uv maping them (one by one) :)
So each roof has their own uv map ;)

[johnnyMac]

BigSky - if i dont need to uv map then why does the texture in my texture window look awful? i can barely make out the texture. how can i scale the texture appropriately? just do some text renders?

when i created a 'file' texture as a projection it created a 3d and a 2d texture node. i'm confused what the 3d node controls. the 2d node works the same way as if i used 'normal' projection right?

DeathBrain - yep. each piece of the roof is a seperate object combined. i ended up just planar mapping faces and then using uv layout to get them into the 0 - 1 range and scaled the 'repeat uv'. it seemed to work nicely but now i'm curious how i could have used box mapping on this object in maya.

no matter what, i'm learning a lot. many thanks.

[DeathBrain]

Aha...separated :)
no no..you don't have to put any box or planar mapping there, lets try this way :

1. create a new material for the roof
2. Select your texture material (as normal 2D placement) and 'repeat uv' like this (http://www.geocities.com/zigaretos/uv1.txt) (for this sample its 4x4)
3. select one side of your roof's face then open uv texture editor, first normalize UVs, then rotate or flip UVs like this (http://www.geocities.com/zigaretos/uv2.txt), do the same steps for the other side of roof
4. So each side of the roof has its own UVs direction like this (http://www.geocities.com/zigaretos/uv3.txt)

Repeat this steps for another roof, I hope it helps :)

[Rezz]

All that I hear is that you are supposed to stay within the 0-1 UV coordnates when UV mapping. Is that ALWAYS true?

nope- sometimes game companys will make a plugin that lets you go off the grid so you only have to texture a tiny bit of it and you can just tile the object using a very small 128-256 texture map

Rock Star has something like that.

[johnnyMac]

DeathBrain - brilliant. thanks again for the help. the screen captures really helped. i knew there was a way to do that but my project deadlines were usually too tight for me to try and figure out how.

Rezz - wish i knew more about gaming techniques. what is 'Rock Star'? that movie with mark wahlberg? :D

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