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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
 Posted - 02/28/2012 : 20:29:06
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Hi, I hope you can help me.. I have a project, which involves applying extremely precise UV maps to some packaging. The packs are basically elongated octahedrons.
I've watched Chris T's Strata Video Training videos on UV mapping, and have dutifully downloaded and become reasonably familiar with Wings 3D (v 1.4).
After all the 'Marking for cuts' and 'stitching', and exporting in OBJ format to Strata, etc, my texture doesn't align at all.
In order to make sure I had the technique down pat, I tried the same exercise with a simple cube (images attached). I created a colour-coded profile of a cube in Illustrator, imported it into Strata, rotated and snapped the six faces into a cube, grouped, converted to a polygon mesh, exported it to Wings, marked all the edges for cuts, sent it to UV Mapping (I tried both Projection Normal and Unfolding) and, referencing the model in both windows, selected edges and stitched them, and finally exported the file as an OBJ.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. The texture was copied directly from the cube's exploded Illustrator profile, and pasted into Photoshop, so it should align perfectly.
Does anyone reading this have any suggestions. I don't have enough hair to afford the luxury of pulling more out!..
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2012 : 20:33:19
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| Oops, me again. I should add that I CTRL-clicked on the UV Mapping command in Wings to force resegmentation. I removed the Wings 3D multi-colored reference once I imported the model into Strata. I created the texture in Strata, and made sure it was set to UV. |
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 01:04:01
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Could you post that cube file for examination?
Thanks,
Chris |
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 09:09:00
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| Sorry, but how do I post the cube file? 'Insert an Image File' doesn't work. |
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tbgriswold
Regularly Educational
USA
1050 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 14:26:01
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Zip the file. It needs to be under 90K I think. If that is not possible. Post the file some where and put the address here.
Britt |
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 14:27:21
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You can also send it directly to me mrchristophersea (at) mac (dot) com.
Chris |
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jpro
A Fountain of Information
USA
4633 Posts |
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 15:59:02
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Thanks very much, Jean. I'm SO saving your post for future reference!
Because my Strata problem involves texture mapping, I need to included the texture, and the combined Strata model and texture ARE too big to post here, but I sent them to Chris T in an email. I've also put the zipped files here:http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9836508/Mapping%20Test.zip
I'm stymied. I just can't understand how a simple cube, with a simple texture, can seem so impossible to accurately UV map in Wings 3D! I must be doing something wrong, but I can't see what it could be! It's like I threw a ball in the air, and it didn't come back down! |
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 16:07:32
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| I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that you get this to match in Wings but not in Strata? The unwrapped mesh certainly doesn't match your inverted T-shape art. You should see if your unwrap results are correct while inside Wings3D. Once you've generated the UV, then you would want to export a UV template to base art off. |
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 16:44:18
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Is it NECESSARY to generate a texture within Wings to use as a template in Photoshop for building a texture? In your video tutorial about the book jacket, you seemed to indicate that it was sort of optional, based, I guess, on a projects requirements.
I suspect my lack of understanding centers on the edge-marking, unfolding and stitching process. After having imported the cube into Wings, I select the orthographic view, which presents one of the cube's vertical edges toward me. Assuming the cube has been imported right-side-up, how am I to know which of the two faces on either side of that edge is the front face? I would need to know this if I'm supposed to mark the edges for cutting following the 'Inverted-T' of my original texture.
Or am I even supposed to follow that inverted-T? Sigh..You made it look so easy in the video tutorial.
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 16:54:56
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For a cube any of the faces can function as the base really. If you look at the attached image, the green lines represent edges that need to open, so those receive cuts. The orange edges fold so remain untouched.
Try a cube using this as a reference.
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:00:54
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| Your cube, when unfolded, would make a T-shape. In Wings then, can I arbitrarily select any edge of the cube, and start 'marking edge for cut' to my heart's content until I end up with a T-shape, or do I somehow have to reference one particular edge to it's corresponding one in my pre-created texture? |
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:06:13
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Once you've got a t-shape, you've got a t-shape. In my illustration I used the logical bottom face as start polygon. Once it's unwrapped into that T-shape then you can lay your texture on it.
Although what Wings is doing to do is orient the t-shape at an angle because it's trying to use the space most efficiently. You'll need to rotate it. The easiest way to do that is to select a single edge (of the UV map), then bring up the context menu and select Rotate -> Chart Y.
After that perform a Scale Max Uniform to get it squarely into the space. |
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:16:21
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Ohh okay. It's beginning to make sense to me. I HAD noticed in an earlier attempt that the t-shape was put into the UV space on an angle, and I figured out that I needed to rotate it, although I didn't know that the Chart option would do it mathematically precisely. NOW I do!!
Thank you so much for the help. I sure wish the manual for Wings were finished. I would devour it voraciously, and become semi-proficient in Wings. Or at least not sucky. |
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:18:04
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| Which version of Design3D are you using by the way? |
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:21:58
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6.1.1
Our company has several licences, and we're considering upgrading to the newer version.
Does it address the former versions UV mapping, uh, idiosyncracies? |
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:23:16
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| Version 7 has UV mapping, although it's currently not as robust as Wings3D. However for this cube shape version 7 can do this super easy in seconds. That and the renderer, modeler and other areas are improved compared to version 6. It's a very worthwhile upgrade. |
Edited by - MrChristopher on 02/29/2012 17:23:51 |
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:32:01
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Well, the ACTUAL pack I have to model and map is more complex than the cube; that was just a dumbed-down test so I could learn what I was doing wrong. The actual model looks like this,
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and will be rendered in this kind of environment
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with a bump map, environmental reflection yada-yada..
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MrChristopher
Regularly Educational
USA
1709 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:36:45
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| You could UV map that in Wings, if you had version 7 that would be fairly easy to UV map there also. |
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mpaitich
Infrequent Poster
Canada
14 Posts |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 17:42:08
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Well, if my voice counts at this company, we'll upgrade to version 7 within a few weeks/months, and life will be good.
Thanks for all your generous help. It's very appreciated! |
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michaelbstrauss
Inquisitive
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2012 : 20:50:17
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| Let me say, upgrading to ver 7 is easily worth just the UV mapping tool...you could map your product in no time with it! |
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UV mapping nightmare
