Really really basic Wings3d UV Mapping Tutorial

[Pressure Line]

so we have downloaded the tank from here, and imported it into wings. what do we do now?

1) select the 'default' material from the outliner



2) using the RMB on the geometry window, go to the UV Mapping submenu and select 'Force Segment'



3) in the AutoUV Segmenting window start selecting faces on the body and tracks and assigning them to an AUV Chart. I have set all the track sides [selected] to the same chart (yellow), the track faces to another (light blue), the body sides and bottom (pink/purple), and the body topfront and back to another (green)



4) now we are going to set the turret top, front, sides and back to the same AUV Chart, then move to edge select mode and select the 4 vertical edges of the turret. with that done we use the 'Mark Edges for Cut' option. this will cut the UV chart along those lines. follow a similar process for the barrel, select the 4 long faces of the barrel and assign them to the same AUV Chart, then add a cut line to ONE of the horizontal edges (preferably along the bottom side of the barrel). assign the end of the barrel to a different AUV Chart than the rest of the barrel.



5) from the RMB menu, go to the 'Continue' sub-menu and select 'Unfolding'.

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6) we should now have something that looks sorta like this. this is what our tank looks like when its laid out flat. at the moment though, we are wasting a lot of space on out UV Map. The better we use the space on our map, the better our texture can look, even when using quite small textures.



7) first thing we can do is move pieces that will be textured the same onto the same part of our map, but first we have to make sure they are aligned. In the AutoUV window, in edge select mode, select the 'top' edge of each of the track sides (the longest edge). In the rmb menu, go to 'Rotate', and select 'Rotate Chart to X'.



now our track sides are all aligned, we need to select all 4 track sides and move them to the centre via the 'Move' and 'Move to Centre' options.



9) Repeat steps 7 and 8 as nessesary until we have all the pieces that we want sharing a texture grouped together. I have only grouped the track sides and track faces together. Now we have a lot of wasted space on our map, so we are going to scale some of the parts, so we can put more detail onto them when it comes to texturing. I have selected the top of the body the track sides and the turret to scale up by 150%, and the track faces by 125%.



10) Now we dont really have enough space on the map to fit everything on! we need to make some of the parts that we wont really see, or dont need much detail anyway smaller. I have scaled the bottom and sides of the body, as well as the barrel down to 75% of their original size.



11) now we have the UV map arranged in a way that should make it easy to texture, now we need to make our base texture. Without having anything selected click the rmb, and select 'Create Texture'. Using the options in the 'Draw Options' window we are going to make a 1024x1024 texture that has the outlines of each of the tank's polygons on it.



Congratulations! We have successfully created a basic UV map using Wings!



NB: When the time comes to actually texture the tank, it would be best to scale the texture down to 512x512 (at least) or 256x256 to conserve video memory, especially for small units and units that will be used a lot ingame.

[Snipawolf]

Do remember that you only load the texture once. It doesn't matter how often you see the unit, it matters how much detail you need to put into it.

[Maelstrom]

Do remember that you only load the texture once. It doesn't matter how often you see the unit, it matters how much detail you need to put into it.

While this is true, huge textures also come with other problems. The bigger a texture is...
1) the longer it takes to load that first time. For example, a 1024x1024 sized texture will produce a noticeable pause in the game when it is loaded for the first time
2) the more memory it takes up in the video card. Video cards only have limited memory, so lots of large textures can quickly fill this up.
3) the longer it takes to render. Smaller textures are easier for the computer/GFX card to render, so smaller textures are faster.

This doesn't mean however that you should never use a large texture. Just be aware of the down sides of a large texture, and use an appropriate size for each unit.

[Sheekel]

Suppose i have a model composed of several parts (turret, barrel, etc).

How do i import/export these in wings so that the UV coords are maintained when i split up the model into its respective parts.

For example, do i export (from rhino) all the .objs individually and import them to wings as such? I've never been able to figure it out...

[Pressure Line]

Suppose i have a model composed of several parts (turret, barrel, etc).

How do i import/export these in wings so that the UV coords are maintained when i split up the model into its respective parts.

For example, do i export (from rhino) all the .objs individually and import them to wings as such? I've never been able to figure it out...

covered in the Unit creation tut i just posted here. ^_^ I'd advise using .3ds exporting if at all possible. its SO much easier.

[rattle]

You should make more use of Chart to X and Chart to Y. Painting the unfolded cube on the right side is a pain right now and it should be straight.

Also one other thing: the UVs which share the same space need to be flipped so the other side is mirrored.

3ds exports, while being useful, wreck the normals most of the time for me by the way.

[Pressure Line]

i relaised that after i did it, but i intended to fill it 100% with teamcolour anyway, so for me it matters not.

[Maelstrom]

i relaised that after i did it, but i intended to fill it 100% with teamcolour anyway, so for me it matters not.

In which case it could have been about 3x3 pixels big, and no one would notice the difference


Also, try disabling the background image in the UV mapping window. ("View -> Show/Hide background image" in the UV editor.) Makes the UV map 100x easier to see
compare:

[smoth]

covered in the Unit creation tut i just posted here. ^_^ I'd advise using .3ds exporting if at all possible. its SO much easier.

obj > 3ds