Approach for mapping onto bent planks?
Hello,
This is my first model pretty much, and I've now moved onto texturing and mapping. I first tried the Unwrap UVW and simply tried to put all polygons into the square without overlapping each other, and then paint the texture onto the polygons as that's the approach I had seen in tutorials. However, since my ship is so big (the scale should be about 30 meters in length IIRC), the texture would get very blurry.
In order to ensure a fairly high resolution, I was referred to this method and kind of figured out this approach:
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrVNfhYsNao"]00011 - YouTube[/ame]
Basically, doing one plank row at a time, taking a few polygons, flatten or unwrap, align the bottoms and put it onto my texture so that the texture aligns with the polygons. That way I get the texture to follow the curve of the polygons or plank. Then I cut the actual model where the edge of the texture or plank is, and take the leftover polygons to create the next plank in the plank row. I know this might be melty, but I hope the video helps clarify.
However, it takes two hours to do one plank row, and two more hours to the edge of the plank row. This means I have tons and tons of hours left.
Is there any more effective way to do this? I kind of have a feeling I should've mapped the texture before making the planks curved, but it's too late for that now obviously...
Also, any other feedback appreciated of course.
Thanks in advance!
This is my first model pretty much, and I've now moved onto texturing and mapping. I first tried the Unwrap UVW and simply tried to put all polygons into the square without overlapping each other, and then paint the texture onto the polygons as that's the approach I had seen in tutorials. However, since my ship is so big (the scale should be about 30 meters in length IIRC), the texture would get very blurry.
In order to ensure a fairly high resolution, I was referred to this method and kind of figured out this approach:
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrVNfhYsNao"]00011 - YouTube[/ame]Basically, doing one plank row at a time, taking a few polygons, flatten or unwrap, align the bottoms and put it onto my texture so that the texture aligns with the polygons. That way I get the texture to follow the curve of the polygons or plank. Then I cut the actual model where the edge of the texture or plank is, and take the leftover polygons to create the next plank in the plank row. I know this might be melty, but I hope the video helps clarify.
However, it takes two hours to do one plank row, and two more hours to the edge of the plank row. This means I have tons and tons of hours left.
Is there any more effective way to do this? I kind of have a feeling I should've mapped the texture before making the planks curved, but it's too late for that now obviously...
Also, any other feedback appreciated of course.
Thanks in advance!
Replies
1. model the whole body as one mesh.
2. unwrap it as a whole.
3. cut along the outsides of the planks on your mesh
4. take all of these faces and extrude them
altough you should state for what it is and how you want to use the boat. a lot of the times a normal map will be totally sufficient, so you do not have to model the planks individually. also, if its for an rts, its total overkill. if the normal map is not sufficient, try displacing it.
Well, it'll have several purposes. I'll use it in a video project, which will require it to be pretty detailed with close-ups and so on. Later on I might want to put it into a Skyrim mod perhaps. Since it's my first model and since I've worked so hard for it up to this point, I don't want all of that to be in vain if you know what I mean.
in feature films, you should definatly make it as highpoly as you have it right now.
but to be honest, idont think thats a good wireframe. you got a lot of tris in there, edgeloops that are abruptly ending and stuff. if you had modeled it properly the unwrapping would be a lot easier. also, you should have modeled so you already model the planks, not some round shape which you want to put a planktexture on. (hard to describe... beasically, dont model anything and then put on planks, but have the planks in your mind before. the shape of the boat is determined out of the planks)
if you had modeled in quads also the selecting and unwrapping would have been easier. max can automatically rectify polygon strips of quads. its the most left icon in the "reshape elements" rollout in the unwrapping editor.
at 4:01 i would have selected the bottom row of verts and scaled them horizontally (making them align )
you might want to temporarily throw on a checker map, to see where your unwrap distorts and then align the clusters to the boards in the end as a second step.
but really... your wireframe is not good at all, you might want to overthink that. if you want to show your wireframe in a demoreel or something everyone will see it is not professional (which you probably want to achieve, a professional look).