UV-mapping

[Tinuviel]

This might have been answered before, but I did not find it in my quick surch so please forgive me if I make you repeat your self.
If I unwrap and uv-map only some faces of my mesh I can usualy make it ok. But the image will also show up on all or some of the other faces of my mesh to. I can avoid the problem by assign a new material to only those faces I want to map. But is this the way it has to be done, by making a new material? Isn't there a way to UV-map an image to only a few faces and still have only one material for the mesh?

[D'eux]

Yes... and no. It depends on what your object is.

For example, if you wanted to UV map a few of your faces to be a wooden texture, and the rest to be shiny gold then you would really need two materials, because both surfaces would require completely different settings (specular, ambience etc.) in order to look right. When you are UV mapping faces, all you are telling the program is how and where to place those faces on a texture. Even if you only tell it where you want a few of the faces to be, it will automatically have to lay the others out itself across the texture because you didn't specify where you wanted them to be.

However, this is where custom painted textures come in. Using a single texture, you could map a few of your faces to certain areas of the texture that were painted with a wood effect and map the rest to an area of the texture that was painted with a completely different surface effect like granite for example.

For example, here is a simple object with one material, mapped with what could be three different 'surfaces':



-: D'eux :-

[Tinuviel]

Thanks for replying, D'eux.
Often I want to make just a part of the mesh stand out, but the material I want to use is the same as the rest of my mesh. Right now I am modeling a tile for my Shell at AP. (hopefully If I learn this Blender thing.. ) On this tile I have placed an image on the top faces. The image is used to give some colour and nor to the tile.

Show Spoiler

As you can see the image looks sort of ok on the top faces, but the image is also showing on the sides. Now, it does not matter it this case because the sides will not be visible, but it bugges me. And I want to have it right for later models.
So if I understand you correctly, I will also have to map the other faces of the mesh to avoid the image to show where I do not want it to show. Perhaps map it to the part of the image that have only alpha? Or use two different materials:-)

[D'eux]

Exactly. So in the case of the tile, you can have a single image that incorporates the design for the top faces and also includes a strip that can be used to map the side faces to. And to save space, you could even incorporate these two textures into some spare space on another image and re-use your texture resources.

-: D'eux :-

[Tinuviel]

Thanks for tour help and for making me understand this thing. One more question out of the way.

[Chacal]

Here's another example that may look extreme, but is in fact used everyday by skinners (texturers) in FPS games. This is a texture for a soldier model for the BF2 game. Notice how little wasted space there is, all textures for one soldier's clothes are crammed into a single image. Then the faces of the soldier model will be mapped to that image. (Note: in BF2, the face and exposed skin are dynamic so those textures are separate).

http://img486.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ex29mf.jpg

[D'eux]

Yep, exactly the technique used to UV map my Remote Age Viewer. Every face unfolded and hand-painted out of a single texture map.

-: D'eux :-

[Tinuviel]

Yaiks...! That is extreem:-) My unwraping is still sort of very simple and I have yet to learn how to unwrap complex meshes, but I can now see the need to learn it. Well bach to the tutorials

PS had a look at your remote viewer, it looks very complex. AND I am amazed how you can come up with such good stories for the things you build. Looking forward to see how it all develops

[Lontahv]

The story isn't the problem here--the modeling is.

It's great to see another writer learning to model. It'll take the strain of the current modelers(me).

Keep on learning/playing in blender; it's worth it here.

~Lontahv

[D'eux]

For a little bit of fun, here's the Remote Age Viewer 'in-game' with an animated, remote view of The Great Stair:
Remote Age Viewer - Teaser Video

-: D'eux :-