Spring RTS Engine

OK, I think I'm missing somthing. Probablie very obvios. In Wings3D, I can UV map an object, but what do I do if I want more than one object to share the same UV space? Is there some way to link the objects into 1 UV map? Or even some way to link objects (cause i havn't noticed one).

Chears!

aGorm

It's pretty easy. Cut your model into halves (use the edge tool, connect and loop cut), delete one half, flatten the big face which you just created.
Now delete everything else which can be cloned, e.g. if you have 6 barrels on a chaingun delete 5 of them, if you have four same wings on a plane delete three of them. Now go uvmapping all your parts.

After you're done mirror the huge face on the model to set it back together, but now it's fully UV mapped thanks to mirroring. The remaining stuff needs to be duplicated and always flipped on X (or Z, depending on rotation) and then moved to negated X (or Z) positions of the other part using absolute movement. This means go check out the coords of the other part and use the same only negated on the cloned and flipped part. Saves time.

The outcome is a fully UV mapped model. Don't forget to use absolute positioning to position the finished model part (which was cut in halves) back into the center. Well you only need to do that if you want your models technically 100% perfect (well I do that). It won't be visible neither in upspring nor spring, only if you're really sloppy

About linking (or stitching) parts together, select an edge in UV mode and use stitch from the context menu. For example when you've got the top and bottom of somewthing UV mapped (both maps are identical) you can flip one part and stitch them back together on an edge where they connect on the model. Now they are linked and share the same space. Stitch more edges together if they touch each other on more than one though. Oh well I do that, no idea if it's necessary.

No, I think you misunder stood the question... How do I get all the parts on the same UV map. Ive left only one arm and 1 leg ect... however I can't see a way to get them on the same map, the program maps a seperate map for each.

You get what I mean?

aGorm

Um yeah, sorry for the rambling.

Connect them all to one piece and go in UV mapping mode. You can do that in object mode (4th). Use seperate to... seperate them again

One way is to combine them all before, then seperate them after. You can also force them by using assign to selection on you materials in outliner.

Combine and Seperate!! WOOOT!! Off to work more on my model then.

aGorm

Does wings UV map well? If I could eliminate one more thing from the hell that is 3DS Max usage, it'd be cool.

yeah, it does

Yhe, once you know the few basics its realy easy mate (hell, ive picked it up and learnt to moddel, UV map in 4 evenings... thats how easy it is.)

aGorm

Rattle, your rambling actually really helped me. I've been wondering how to do just that for a while. Thanks. Really thanks.

Thank Argh, it was his spider tutorial which got me rolling :)

aGorm wrote:Yhe, once you know the few basics its realy easy mate (hell, ive picked it up and learnt to moddel, UV map in 4 evenings... thats how easy it is.)

aGorm

4? I took 2, one day of asking "Wtf is a UV map?" And the other of testing

I took 2 hours, but that's when my monitor found itself flying through the window.

Proper UV maps or something slappepd up in 5 minutes by letting most of the work do wings?