Texture Space, Theory and Practice.

[Argh]

It's not you, Fanger. Your little Forum buddies followed me around, pissing me off. I decided I'd had enough, which was pointless, since apparently the only person who understands what I'm doing these days is me.

I was not, and did not, mean to imply you suck, or whatever. I was thinking I'd be helpful. Apparently, I'm not allowed to help any more, since I'm incompetent

Next time, I'll just let everybody say I'm stupid, and not bother defending my POV. It's like pouring gasoline on a Bunsen burner full of stupid.

[SwiftSpear]

Deleted a bunch of posts so I could reopen this thread...

A: Fang is not horrible, stop being an asshole to him already, this includes the FGJL crew, fighting battles for someone is being an asshole to them.

B: Talk more about good modeling tricks. This thread had some good stuff before people wreaked it. Argh briefly mentioned something about getting straight lines so you could easily do your lighting or something... anyways, that's a mistake ALOT of early UV mappers make, trying for too much texturespace efficiency and in the process wreaking the texture by doing things like having architexture seems that must be textured run on diagonals and other unworkable angles. Efficiency is good, but there are other things you must do in order to make a good texture.

C: I couldn't texture most of smoth's UV maps because they are too complicated. While he does a very good job of them, and they are incredibly efficient, I'm not quite sure how he does it, from an actual texturing perspective they are often nearly incomprehensible... The reality is there is some style element to UV and texture work. In the past I've tried building textures for argh's work, and found it mostly frustrating because so much mirroring was used I couldn't do the lighting stuff I wanted with the textures. That being said, argh makes textures that look good. Different texturing styles will be complimented or cursed by different UV mapping styles. Don't immediately assume your style is best, or even that there is a best style.

D: The reality is, there is two fundamental prerequisites to meet for modeling. It must look good, and it must be as efficient as you can possibly make it. There are lots of paths to said destinations, and different paths will give you better or worse results Dependant on the final product you are hoping to achieve. I'd really like to see more discussion of technique and less argumentation of the "best way of doing things". Realistically speaking, if there is a best way of doing things, you're not going to know it unless you've mastered all the wrong ways of doing things first when we're dealing with an issue this complicated. No one here is that expert.

[AF]

You'd probably do well with a nice blog for all of these things rather than forum threads Argh.

[Treeform]

I improved my texturing skills while you guys are arguing over crap, I guess that makes me a winner.

hey me too!

[Fanger]

The red stuff, btw, is my markup, showing all of the faces on the undersides of the turrets and the bottom of the tank.

The green stuff is the stuff I can see should be mirrored, just from looking at the map, unless the columns need to have different ends.

Alright.. Im going to redo this uvmap and hopefully that will appease everyone.. I realize that one or two of the green pieces could be redone, but If I may explain myself, the green part attached to the body of the tank, is in fact part of the body of the tank, and not something that can be mirrored without me splitting the tank body in half and then mirroring it down the middle. Personally I dont want to do this because then it means each side will look the same, and I prefer the camo patterns going across didnt look the same. Other than that, the object that looks like a "boob" in profile could be mirrored, and the red pieces dont need to be very large or visible, Im honestly not sure why I thought they ought to, so I will tighten up my UVmap and maybe everyone will calm down..

[KDR_11k]

You can make areas overlap without having them be actually mirrored.

[smoth]

Fang, I honesty do mean what I say when I offer to pack your uvs for you. You can throw them away afterwards but I would like to do it just so you can see what I did and then use it. Otherwise I'll walk you through it in TT.

ALSO

Don't mirror your turret, I like the cammo being non-semetrical.

[Guessmyname]

And, in fact, GMN, the guy who's doing most of the major modeling work, has gotten incredibly good at providing me with models that are ready to mirror all over the place, because he knows I'll use it.

Really? When I've finished a model, my first thought is usually along the lines of "I pity the poor bastard who has to uv/texture this"

I would also like to say that there are advantages to leaving some empty space: dividers. When I UV I cram all the cut up bits together as best I can, and promptly forget what face goes where when I come to texturing it. Splitting the uv map into bits of model (ie, all bits of the left arm over there) reduces this greatly. This is especially important for my models, given how many separate parts they tend to be made of (ie an arm will be made of four separate pieces. Guns are usually the worst offenders)

[Argh]

Really? When I've finished a model, my first thought is usually along the lines of "I pity the poor bastard who has to uv/texture this"

Heh, sometimes, I go, "holy crap, how am I ever going to sort this out", but it always works out in the end.

[SwiftSpear]

Heh, Fang, you know better than to believe you can appease anyone with work

Just do it so you can get better at something you want to be better at anyways

[Argh]

Fanger, all talk about mirroring and stuff aside, the stuff you're talking about is the only stuff that is a "yeah, probably needs to happen" thing.

The rest of it is 100% optional, and with a camo pattern, a mirror is very tricky to pull off. It's possible, just a pain, and almost certainly not worth the time investment. For the top surfaces, it'd look obvious and trashy, I totally agree- too many "obvious marks" there, unless you were using some linear puzzle-camo variant, and even then it'd be pretty darn obvious.

[SpikedHelmet]

The rest of it is 100% optional, and with a camo pattern, a mirror is very tricky to pull off. It's possible, just a pain, and almost certainly not worth the time investment.

I disagree. It is actually quite easy to make a complex camoflage pattern using 3-4 different colours, make it all connect, without making it obvious that it's a mirror. See the half dozen or so of them I've done.

[rattle]

It mainly depends on how large the spots are... the bigger the more obvious.

[Fanger]

You can make areas overlap without having them be actually mirrored.

I have no idea how to do this in wings except maybe by hand, which im sure would not be precise..

[aGorm]

Assuming it unwrapped them identically, its just a case of doing "move to middle" possibly flipping one and them bam, you got 2 things sharing texture space. If there a bit out, tweak by hand.

Remember as well that no ones going to notice if something is mapped 0.001 unit off were its twin is...

aGorm

[rattle]

It's about as easy to map it perfectly.

Flip on X/Y, Chart (edge) to X/Y, Move to center and Scale -> Normalize are your best friends here.

[SpikedHelmet]

This is why i like a dedicated uvmapping and texturing program. As I'm editing the texture, I get to see the result in real-time on my model, as simple as switching from one window to the other.

[Fanger]

sounds cool.. I didnt ever use that..

sorry spiked I make due with what I have..

[Guessmyname]

This is why i like a dedicated uvmapping and texturing program. As I'm editing the texture, I get to see the result in real-time on my model, as simple as switching from one window to the other.

Which program would this be?

[Pressure Line]

Ultimate Unwrap i believe (or something very similarly named) i just use wing's 'make external' function (but im crap so what do i know lol.)