How do you apply directional textures to curved UVs?

MarkoPolo

Hi folks. I'm quite new to 3D and I'm struggling to see how I would apply a texture with a fixed directional "flow" to a curved UV map to ensure that the texture follows the flow of the mesh.

As a crude example, here is where I'm at right now: http://i.imgur.com/hEtPudX.jpg

Say I wanted to apply this corrugated metal texture to the UV'd helmet but I wanted the corrugations to flow nicely around the helmet rather than warping from horizontal at the front to vertical at the back.

Do I need to rethink how I unwrap curved objects or is there some fundamental texturing concept I do not yet know which would make this kind of task easy?

Thanks.

musashidan

You should tell us software your using for more specific help.(from the image I'm guessing UVmaster in Zbrush)

You can unwrap curved islands several ways (again same result, different tools in different software)

3dsmax - you can unfold from strip or peel>straighten>relax internal edges

Headus UV Layout - rectilinear tool

UVmaster - doesn't have these kinds of tools. It's a staight-up pelt>relax You can try and break it into polygroups and force it into straighter islands, but this isn't ideal at all. Also, editing heavy topology in a UV editor is a nightmare. Why is the mesh so dense? It is a very simple shape with no detail and doesn't need to be such high-poly.

Think of the texture direction in relation to your UVs. Your UVs are a 2d flattened representation of the mesh in 3d space. So the UV island needs to be flattened out straight and facing the same direction in the UV editor as you want it to follow the pattern on the texture. You should take the mesh back to Zbrush and Zremesh it to a more reasonable polycount. And then you can take it to your main 3D package and use the tools I referred to above.

MarkoPolo

Thanks for the feedback Musashidan. I'm using Blender to perform the Uv'ing and I simply marked two seams, one down the back of the helmet and one around the top "peak". I realise that the mesh is way too dense as I forgot to reduce the subsurface modifier for rendering.

So if I was to rethink the Uving, could I straighten out the UV shell to make it more rectangular or would that cause too much stretching/distortion?

musashidan

Yes, I'm positive Blender would have similar tools. It's basically a cylindrical unwrap with a few extra steps. Maybe somebody who knows Blender will chime in. But, in the meantime, you should definitely lower the res.

xrg

I usually use "Follow Active Quads" to do that. I show it a couple times in this video (there are timestamps in the description to skip around). Alternatively, you can try the techniques described here.

xrg

I usually use "Follow Active Quads" to do that. I show it a couple times in this video (there are timestamps in the description to skip around). Alternatively, you can try the techniques described here.

MarkoPolo

Thanks guys! I spent a bit time today looking into this and came across the same guide you linked XRG.

I've had a go with the UV squares addon for Blender and have achieved the result that I've been looking for! I'm going to experiment with some of the manual methods as well. http://i.imgur.com/KH1Y35E.jpg

Thanks to you both for taking the time to help out a noob