Texturing 101: Getting Started!

[leigh]

But what exactly is it? It's hard to give advice about the next step if we don't actually know what this object is. Having said that, unless this is for a cartoony model, you're going to need a lot more detail in there. In the real world, you don't get flat, constant colour - there are always variations.

Oh, and a diffuse map is a colour map.

You may want to read this to get you started:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=46&t=392677

[Shuggs]

I would really appreciate the help! Most of the time when I post things like this, I get 800 views and no replies. Not very helpful, you know? Especially when I'm really eager to learn about this stuff and do it right. Here's the texture/pattern I'm trying to put on. What I did was take this honeycomb texture and lay it over what I painted in ZBrush. Don't mind the light blue it was to test something out, and I know this isn't seamless and I will fix that. Just wanted to run a test:

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt149/CotE_Site/Test-Color-Pattern.jpg

And now I have all of this weird displacement going on with it on the model:

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt149/CotE_Site/Mega-Issues.jpg

Could I have unwrapped the UVs the wrong way? The checkers all weren't uniform. They never are and I've asked how to get them that way in 3DS Max and I never get a straight answer, so I've been winging it and winging it. I've been looking around the Internet for decent tutorials but always get something fairly mediocre and non helpful. I'll keep trying though but any help right now would be greatly appreciated.

[leigh]

You're getting distortion and scale issues because of your UVs. It's very simple to fix. UVs should be scaled relative to the model; in other words, make sure the scale of your UVs is constant. The reason why the texture is bigger on your head, is because the UVs in that area are too small.

Apply your checkerboard texture to the model and adjust the UVs until the checkerboard pattern is the same size across your entire model. Areas where you're getting distortion may have strange topology or not enough polys, or your UVs are simply messed up in those spots. Remember that UVs are interpolated between vertices, so if your topology is weird, your UVs are going to be weird too. Once you've ensured that your topology is clean, relaxing your UVs can help minimise further distortion.

Bearing that in mind, organic models are virtually impossible to get totally distortion-free UVs from, unless you cut your UVs into loads of different pieces and make each piece perfect, which then creates loads of texture seams to deal with.

So the ideal approach is really just to edit your UVs until you've minimised distortion as much as possible, and then use a 3D painting app like Bodypaint to project textures onto the areas where the distortion persists.

[Shuggs]

I am very appreciative and thankful for your replies and guidance, leigh. It's hard to find this kind of direction on these forums these days sadly. I will go back and re-do my UVs and also do a topology check. There are some instances where some polygons are bigger than the others (almost in a rectangular shape), so that's probably an issue as you've stated.

I'll try a few different things and post back here sometime tonight. I'm very excited about this. I'm just thrilled that I unwrapped my own model and got textures on it even though they're probably wrong. Its a step in the right direction and I'm learning from it. :)

[leigh]

I am very appreciative and thankful for your replies and guidance, leigh. It's hard to find this kind of direction on these forums these days sadly. I will go back and re-do my UVs and also do a topology check. There are some instances where some polygons are bigger than the others (almost in a rectangular shape), so that's probably an issue as you've stated.

Yeah, I'm not a modeller myself, so I'm no expert on the whole topology subject, but I believe that it's generally advisable to keep your polys quite consistent across the surface of organic models. The models that I texture at work generally have very clean, consistently scaled topology. I would advise you to always ensure your model is looking good and correct before you move to the texturing stage, to avoid doing a bunch of work that then has to be re-done.

I'll try a few different things and post back here sometime tonight. I'm very excited about this. I'm just thrilled that I unwrapped my own model and got textures on it even though they're probably wrong. Its a step in the right direction and I'm learning from it. :)

Definitely give yourself a pat on the back. It's people who take initiative like you're doing, who tend to get further in this field. You've certainly made far more of an effort on your own than the majority of people posting on forums seem to.

[musashidan]

Another handy trick when UVing a character with clothing is to have modeled physical seams into the clothing which enables you to place UV seams in naturally occurring areas and lessen the visibility of unsightly texture seam issues.

as Leigh mentioned,the inconsistencies in UV scale should be resolved before texturing. Generally, a checker pattern or similar checkered/numbered pattern is applied to the mesh pre-UV to test for stretching/distortion/scale inconsistencies.

[Psyk0]

Congrats on getting it done, i remember unwrapping was a real challenge when i started.

You seem to have grasped the basics, you just need to polish your workflow that's all. General rules of uvmapping could be broken down like this:

1.Keep distortion to a minimum.

2.Hide seams whenever possible (inside of the legs, under the arm) this should also be in your modeling workflow. Even before unwrapping, you should plan your seams while modeling, using straps, and clothing seams to break your UV shells.

3.As mentioned earlier, normalize your UV shells...that means scale them in relation to each other so you have the same ratio / checker size. There's even scripts that you can use in Max to do this automatically for you. Of course you can break this rule if you need better details on a character's head...or simply give it it's own texture all together.

Here's Paul Greveson's normalize script (http://www.greveson.co.uk/scripts/normalizeUvScale.ms)

As with all macroscript containers, put the .ms file into 3dsmax/scripts and use "run script" to run the script once, which will add the macroscript to your Customize menu - look in the "MoP's Tools" group if you want to put it on a hotkey/quadmenu/toolbar.

4.Use the maximum space on your texture sheet!. Sometimes you can mirror stuff that won't be seen at the same time (or too small to be noticeable, a character's hand in a game for exemple). If your game engine supports it, it's best to mirror, saves time and gives you a lot more pixels to work with. You are currently wasting a lot of texture space because you did not organize your shells to fit together while being scaled bigger.

P.S.:Sorry for the wall of text!.

[Shuggs]

Just wanted to say that I really appreciate all of the help here. I've really been working with these UVs and making an effort to learn to do things the right way. It'll take me a couple tries to get it right but I hope to improve from here on out. I'm going to go ahead and download that normalize script. That's going to be very useful for me! I appreciate that. It's a slow progress but I feel like I'm getting somewhere. Let me know if you see any "beginner's" mistakes here! I have no problems going back and fixing things to get them right. Also, I haven't unwrapped the sections with the stretched checkered pattern just yet:

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt149/CotE_Site/UVUddate.jpg

[leigh]

Yeah, nice one. The body is looking good.

[musashidan]

Starting to look pretty good.You're definitely on the right track.Just keep working at it and know that when your checkers are square and unstretched,you've succeeded in your task and it'll only get easier from here on in. :thumbsup:

[Shuggs]

You all have been very helpful and I greatly appreciate it! I have a question though! I've started sculpting in ZBrush (finished the UVs), but I'm going to need to retopologize for animation. Will retopologizing destroy my existing UVs? How does that work?

[musashidan]

The short answer is yes. As you're retopoing,you're creating a completely new mesh with completely different vert ID's. Usually,you'd create a basemesh.(Don't UV it) sculpt your new detailed mesh> retopo> UV the retopoed mesh. Otherwise you'd be UVing twice which is an obvious waste of time as the original basemesh will be scrapped when you retopo.

Here's an in depth example of a typical workflow: ' (http://www.marcusdublin.com/TutorialsselectionPage.html)[/url][url="http://www.marcusdublin.com/TutorialsselectionPage.html"]Making of Paragalis' (http://www.marcusdublin.com/TutorialsselectionPage.html)

[Shuggs]

The short answer is yes. As you're retopoing,you're creating a completely new mesh with completely different vert ID's. Usually,you'd create a basemesh.(Don't UV it) sculpt your new detailed mesh> retopo> UV the retopoed mesh. Otherwise you'd be UVing twice which is an obvious waste of time as the original basemesh will be scrapped when you retopo.

Here's an in depth example of a typical workflow: ' (http://www.marcusdublin.com/TutorialsselectionPage.html)Making of Paragalis' (http://www.marcusdublin.com/TutorialsselectionPage.html)

While that sucks, that's what I call tough love. Truthfully, UV mapping this model for the third time is going to be tedious, but at the same time, I'm learning and building up a work flow. I've never done 3DSMax > Zbrush > 3DSMax > ZBrush> Lightwave before (Base Modeling > Sculpting and Retopologizing > UV Mapping > Texturing > Rigging, Lighting, Rendering), so this is going to be really useful.

[Niro642006]

I've been working in maya for a few years now, and most of that tie has been spent on making better models. and a little was on making better textures.. but they was always stationary things. and now i've made a capsule that opens and closes on a hinge, and i textured it with a mi_metallic_paint shader, and plugged a .jpg image into the base color and lit color. but now anytime i rotate, or move the object, the texture changes, and just looks weird.

Also, even though i checked to make sure i covered all the uv with the right colors, the back half of the sphere is still showing the base black from the uvmap. Does anyone have an idea what's wrong with my object?

Thank you in advance for your generous help, and i'm sorry for asking so many questions.

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