Rotating a UV map after it had been placed on the object to exporting it.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I've playing around with UV mapping and accidentally discovered that a map once applied to an object can be rotated on any of the XYZ axises to change the appearance of the map in a UV map editor preparing it for output to a paint program. See the example below. The spiral object originally had a planar map applied essentially producing a flat 1d image in the map editor. However, I discovered that rotating the UV mapping on the object produced a more 2d layout making it much easier to paint as the parts that make up the object are better separated and finally sent to my paint program. Has anyone ever used this method to prepare a UV map for painting a final texture map?



PS: I'm using Truespace, but would appreciate a bit more feedback from non TS users as well to help me get a better understanding of UV mapping in general especially in terms of preparing a UV map for output to a paint program. BNG.

[mrtwosheds]

All I do with UV mapping is to arrange the poly shapes into the most efficient positions, to fill the image and maximise the image resolution of selected parts, then export a uv map and use that to create the skin.

On an object such as that I would probably arrange all the green/blue polys on top of each other,(and weld) so the UV map only has the one four sided poly showing and only occupy's one corner of the texture, thus all those four sided polys all end up being textured the same, and the rest of the models polys can be arranged on the rest of the texture.

Generally speaking programs UV map badly, human intelligence is required to translate it into a good looking model.

[TheJamsh]

Generally speaking programs UV map badly

that is so true. i used MAX 7, and the uv mapping system is pants. i gave up on modelling shortly after.

[Nielk1]

I UV in Max 6 and do a great job of it. I select specific polygons and then use the shapes to UV wrap, then go into the unwrap mode and move it off the central square to the side. Once I have done this with all of them, and have made sure none will overlap, I select the entire mesh and use the unwrapper and position my polygon segments as they fit for highest texture resolution. Then I make my texture.

I have recently started use renders from different angles to make my base skins.

[TheJamsh]

ah saying that, it may be because i was mapping onto an already done texture...

'sigh' just like the FE campaign, i messed up the order of things again...

[Avatar]

So, you've been applying a UV map and leaving it whatever orientation the 3D program has as the default?



I suppose that's working for you because you're drawing the texture from the mapping, not fitting a texture to an object.  Most of my stuff is done the other way around,  I have a texture and I fit it to the object via adjusting the mappings.

In Max once you apply a UV map you have considerable tweaking to do.  Planar mapping is the simplest but not generally the best choice, especially when applied straight along an axis...  you usually want to angle it somewhat to avoid streaking the texture wherever the model is 90 degrees to the plane of the mapping.  I usually start with cylindrical or box mapping on an object as Max does a decent job with those, saving you a lot of time as you ajust the individual pieces.

No, usually you tilt, adjust, size, rotate, stretch, flip, etc. each mapping to get the desired result.  I usually do that BY GROUPS OF FACES after applying an initial UV Map to the whole object.

I UV in Max 6 and do a great job of it. I select specific polygons and then use the shapes to UV wrap, then go into the unwrap mode and move it off the central square to the side. Once I have done this with all of them, and have made sure none will overlap, I select the entire mesh and use the unwrapper and position my polygon segments as they fit for highest texture resolution. Then I make my texture.

I have recently started use renders from different angles to make my base skins.

Didn't I show that in one of my tutorials?  I swear I did...

Any 3D package that doesn't let you adjust the UV mapping in some way after application wouldn't be worth trying to texture in... 

[Nielk1]

i make things that use stock skins too, I just prefer making my own.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

What about applying multiple texture layers? Can that be done as Truespace has options for adding additional texture layers, but I haven't really messed with more then a single texture so far. How does MAX deal with multiple texture options? BNG.

[Nielk1]

Not sure. Sometimes I make my textures completely in max then render to texture. Although the map can sometimes be a little ugly it looks great on the model. There are material types that are multiple materials, and any material can be added as a sub material for a generated material.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

BZII doesn't seem to read material colors at all as I've discovered when I load my models into the game minus an applied texture the engine turns everything into a bright blank white texture. 3dex and Threed both seem to read them just fine, but no luck with the game engine itself. To get anything to appear requires me to like do a screen grab open that in my paint app. and then apply them to the model in the modeler work space. There's even an option in the X export settings to convert the textures to an older 8 bit BMP format. Do you suppose that the engine needs to see the texture as an 8 bit image verses the default 24 bit format that BMP files use. Also, I wonder if an 8 bit BMP has a much smaller file size due to less file information. Guess I'll have to do some testing to find out if it makes any difference at all.

Preparing a texture map, painting it, and finally applying it to the model is fairly simple. Learning advanced texturing techniques seems to be the greatest challenge to making a nicely skinned model. Does BZII support multiple layer textures? BNG.

[Avatar]

Max does it by "Materials".  A Material has multiple properties like shininess, opacity, etc. as well as using textures for things like bump mapping, specular coloring, etc..  So, a in a way many of the stock materials are 'multi-texture' as they have separate textures for various properties.   You can also merge/mix a couple of visible textures to make a material but to my knowledge it doesn't make it through the exporter for use in BZ2.

Most game objects depend a LOT on their texture for subtle details.  Like the bit about making a hi-res wheel hub and rendering it to provide the texture for the lower poly version.  I'm pretty sure I demonstrated that in the 'sparrow' tutorial, as it provides a pre-shaded base to make the texture on. 

Anything that speeds things up while providing a high quality product is a good thing in game object design...

-Av-

[Dianoga4]

I do pretty much all of my uv mapping in Blender including making the texture in Blender. It has the option as well of unwrapping something and then saving the UV layout to a TGA format (I believe it is anyways) which you can then do whatever you want to it in Photoshop or your program of choice. You can then obviously save it into whatever format you want. I've gotten used to just selecting the faces on the model and arranging them myself onto a map. I just didn't like the way it would unwrap it and now just find it easier to do manually.

Dia

[mrtwosheds]

Some of the stock models appear to be multi textured, like ibtcen. using more than one material
I'm not sure what the point of it is, Or wether I have ever seen its effect in game.
Threed tends to make a mess of this when saving xsi's.

[Avatar]

Oh, well, sure.  That's not what I meant by multi-textured, I meant more than one texture per material.  Each object in an XSI can have it's own material, with it's own properties and textures.  It's blended textures as part of one material that doesn't make it through the exporter.  Looks fine in Max but then ends up just the base texture in BZ2.

-Av-

[Nielk1]

Hence render to texture ^_^