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Help converting materials to UVmaps
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Help converting materials to UVmaps // New Users
Post by tamtam // Dec 1, 2007, 7:35pm
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tamtam
Total Posts: 213
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I like how easy it is to make and apply materials in TS 7.5 (I still have the trial). Does anyone know of a way to generate automatic UV maps that contain all of the materials on a mesh in TS 7.5 (including color, bump, specular, transparency, etc.)?
I just need a way to convert the materials to UVs on a mesh because I have been programming in a basic language, and so it would help me texture my game models faster, and more efficiently. I'm not the best at painting UV map textures on a computer.
I know the basics of basic programming, but have never made a script or plugin.
Could someone please write a plugin for this if there are no ways of converting materials to uv maps?
I have suggestions for the plugin's interface::)
1. Have a list of the materials of the selected objects (so you can choose the materials to convert.) Possibly have a 'select all materials' button.
2. Use radio buttons to choose the method of uv mapping (plane,cubic,cylindrical, automatic, unfolded).
Plane map - choose X, Y, or Z to specify what part of the model the UV map will come from.
Automatic map (Default) - Separates the model's UVs by projections on the top, bottom, left, right, front, and back.
Unfolded - Opens up the UVs like origami, while keeping the UVs connected.
Cubic - gets UVs of each side of any cube-like object.
Cylindrical - the projection wraps all around the selected object.
3. When the 'generate UVmap' button is pressed, it will open the TS UV editor, and show your material UV map there, so you can edit and export it.
4. Use checkboxes to choose if you want to include 3d paint (if used on model), and/or Material rectangles (if used on model).
One more thing: What is texture baking?
Thanks again!
- tamtam |
Post by Jack Edwards // Dec 2, 2007, 9:56am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Hi Tamtam,
Unfortunately "automatic" UV mapping hardly ever creates usable results. You'd be much better served by learning how to create UV maps manually. The simplest way to do this is to select groups of faces at a time and best fit planar project them, then stitch up the resulting "uv islands" in the UVE.
A tool I recommend is UU3D:
www.unwrap3d.com
For a more automated solution you may want to look into:
Roadkill -- http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm
UVlayout -- http://www.uvlayout.com/
Unfold3D -- http://www.unfold3d.com/
Always do your UV mapping before texturing so that you can get the best texture distribution.
Hope that helps! |
Post by TomG // Dec 4, 2007, 2:49am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Slightly puzzled by the request - tS already does UV mapping, and it is already exported to formats that support it (eg X format, OBJ, etc). These formats will take the UV mapping created from tS (whether created via tS's automatic processes, or created manually via the UV Editor).
You can already do planar, spherical, cylindrical, cubic, and unwrap in tS. So not quite sure what the role of the plugin is meant to be :)
For different UV mapping, there are plugins available as noted. Again they dont feature exports, as UVs (once applied) are already exported by tS to formats that support UV mapping.
Texture baking means writing out a texture map (that is, an image in 2D format) which includes the effect of lighting (so if you have a spotlight shining on one area of the object, the resulting texture map will be the regular texture map you had applied as a material, but now it will be brighter in the area where the spotlight was shining on the object).
Texture baking is most used for landscapes / environments (eg in games) so that the room looks lit without needing to do the lighting calculations in the game engine, which speeds things up (but then being baked, you can't cast shadows - eg in our spotlight, you can't walk in front of the spotlight in game and have the light effect removed, as its permanently part of the texture map).
HTH!
Tom |
Post by parva // Dec 4, 2007, 4:41am
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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Does anyone know of a way to generate automatic UV maps that contain all of the materials on a mesh in TS 7.5 (including color, bump, specular, transparency, etc.)?
...
One more thing: What is texture baking?
this request is called "texture baking" except the automatic uv map creation part.
Writing a script would depend from the render engine you use and if this engine can store all the shading information from/to the uv map.
Don't know if lightworks could do that. LW can do output render elements but if this could be combined with uv map info, don't know.
The original vray can do it at least for the 3ds max version.
Generating automatic uv maps is mostly called "flatten mapping" in combination with "packing uv's" which means that the faces are reoriented to a planar surface.
Mostly done upon an automatic procedure.
ts7 use such a function in the normal mapper (automatic unwrapper). |
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