Topic Subject:Texturing with Blender (help needed)
Candlemaster Mortal
posted 31 January 2007 10:55 PM EDT (US)
I recently started constructing a new hero with Blender. At this point, the model should be completely finished, and I think I've even got animating down. I just keep running into problems when I try to texture it.
I tried UV mapping the whole thing at once. Not pretty. I tried UV mapping just one section at a time. Rather weird. I tried cutting seams then UV mapping the whole thing. :shudders:
Can someone out there help me? The tutorials on the Blender site weren't overly helpful.
...Someone?
[This message has been edited by Candlemaster (edited 02-04-2007 @ 05:14 PM).]
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Replies:
Dnas Mortal
posted 05 February 2007 05:42 PM
EDT (US)
1 / 6
Well, it really depends on how you want to do things. Experiment and find a workflow that works best.
Usually one starts by cutting seams.
After that, I like to select everything, and have Blender automatically do everything from there. Then, using Live Unwrap Transform, pinning of vertices, etc., adjust the map so that it's more or less right.
Then, I make some minor adjustments as I see fit. There, I might select only parts of the model, to make things easier.
This is the article that introduced me to Blenders unwrapping tools a while back. It's kind of outdated... doesn't mention Live Unwrap Transform which is a collossal time saver... and the mesh is more complicated than anything you'll have to unwrap, but still... it's a nice article. http://www.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/x5336.html
[This message may have been edited by Dnas (edited 49-92-4096 @ 42:93 PM).]
Candlemaster Mortal
posted 05 February 2007 11:18 PM
EDT (US)
2 / 6
Thanks a ton for these tutorials. I'll read them later when I have some more time on my hands, but for now I have two more questions regarding Blender:
A) How can I work with Hotspots? Can I work with Hotspots?
B) When I try to turn a .3dx back into a .brg with AoMed, it asks me for a .brg model with the same number of frames and materials (Or something along those lines). Is there any way around this?
In the meantime, I'll continue working on static embellishment models.
[This message has been edited by Candlemaster (edited 02-05-2007 @ 11:21 PM).]
Dnas Mortal
posted 06 February 2007 04:06 PM
EDT (US)
3 / 6
Hotspots/Attachpoints: No. You couldn't do that with Gmax either. The Blender scripts still use AoMEd to convert and AoMEd doesn't know how to handle attachpoints. Brg is a closed format, so we do not know how attachpoints are stored without cracking the format... that part of which hasn't yet and probably won't be.
Same number of Frames and Mats: No way around that either. Gmax needed it too. It's because there are chunks of the brg format that are unknown exactly what they specify and how they work. This includes the attachpoints. A base model is required so that AoMEd can just pull the unknown chunks from the base model into your new one. For it to do this, your models must be compatible, same number of frames, materials, etc.
So, one should always start from an existing model, so that you pull in the materials and the frame count.
[This message may have been edited by Dnas (edited 49-92-4096 @ 42:93 PM).]
[This message has been edited by Dnas (edited 02-06-2007 @ 04:10 PM).]
Candlemaster Mortal
posted 06 February 2007 06:17 PM
EDT (US)
4 / 6
Okay, well after reading some of the tutorial, I've successfully attached a placeholder texture onto a static object and successfully UV'd it. I have a question though:
How do I set the model to use a certain texture by default in the game and tell the model that it can be found at AOM/textures/something.ddt?
EDIT: BTW, the model I'm working on right now only has one texture.
Also, is there any particular reason why AoM's model seem to have so many doubled vertices when I load them in Blender?
[This message has been edited by Candlemaster (edited 02-08-2007 @ 05:14 PM).]
Candlemaster Mortal
posted 15 February 2007 02:49 AM
EDT (US)
5 / 6
I really need help with this... so... bump?
Dnas Mortal
posted 15 February 2007 07:12 PM
EDT (US)
6 / 6
Quote:
How do I set the model to use a certain texture by default in the game and tell the model that it can be found at AOM/textures/something.ddt?
You hexedit the brg, the ddt must have the same number of letters in the name. There are plenty to tutorials on this. Nothing to do with Blender at all.
Quote:
Also, is there any particular reason why AoM's model seem to have so many doubled vertices when I load them in Blender?
Yes. The particular reason being that there are many doubled vertices. :P
The reason they are doubled is because of how UVs work.
It is very very convenient to unwrap UVs and specifying them by face. This way, one can have a seam in the texture without actually splitting the vertices.
However, it is inconvenient for a 3d renderer to render such a model. It is more convenient to simply have one uv vert per vertex and require vertices be duplicated when a seam in the texture is needed.
As BRG is supposed to be a write-only format, it follows the latter. When the AoM modelers exported their models, the duplicated UVs were split and the BRG was render-optimized. The Blender scripts will make this change too. (BRG does not support UVs-per-face... and naturally so)
However, when we import them again, we get the processed version. As such, there are duplicated vertices. This is easy mitigated by applying Remove Doubles to the mesh.