UV TEXTURE LAYOUT


Selections from email...

It's actually pretty simple.

We'll start with the the base pose. It should be combined, and with verts merged.

I like to have the UV Texture Editor and a Perspective window open.

1. Select the base pose

2. Under Modeling, select:

Edit Polygons > Texture > Automatic Mapping > Options

Planes: 6
Optimize: Less Distortion
Layout: Into Square
Spacing: 1024
Percentage: .1

Then click "project" and you're 30% done. This creates an automatic layout, projected from 6 sides of a cube. You can try it over and over again, changing the "planes" number. I've found that "6" is generally the best.

Now you need to think ahead. How is your model going to be mapped? You're going to want to lay out his UV's in a way that will make your texture painting simplest. Let's start with his face. You should have a big section of your model's face laid out from the auto mapping.

1. Put your mouse pointer over a section of his head. Right Click > UV. Pick a UV. It will appear as a green point.

2. Mouse over same piece of UV. Right Click > Select > Select Shell. All UV's in piece should highlight. Select Transform "W key" and move the piece to one of the other quadrants.

3. Mouse still over section. Right Click > Edge. Pick a border edge of the piece you just moved. Just pick one edge for now. It should turn orange. Also, the connecting edge on another section will also highlight.

4. In the UVTexture Editor Window, Select the Polygons Menu > Move and Sew UV.

The connecting edge and its attached pieces should move over and connect to your section. Smaller pieces always move to the larger pieces, by the way.

5. If you need to separate edges for better layout, highlight the edge and select Polygons > Cut UV's.

Know that you can select, move, and sew multiple edges at once. Sometimes that's fine. Other times it twists them up and you have to undo. The idea is to connect as much as you can together that will help with your texture painting without distorting the shape of the polygons too much. Some distortion is okay.

Posted: Sat - June 25, 2005 at 02:41 AM          

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