(Texturing) - How to keep a 'straight' texture on a curved mesh (see pictures)

AJWhyles

Hey all! 

I'm looking for a texture pro. Below you can see the example that I'm trying to recreate in yellow. Before I cut holes in the mesh, it's nice and easy to straighten the UV and then apply the texture, nice and straight, no issues. 
Once I cut the holes into the mesh, I can't straighten the UV's (due to the topology changing) and it warps the pattern around the holes. 

Is there a way I can apply the texture to the mesh that somehow 'ignores' the holes? 
Sorry if this explanation is terrible. Hope you can help! 

Alex_J

you can still straighten the UV even if it has holes in it. 

I am not familiar with the program you are using there. In maya I would grab the border UV's, align them straight, pin them, and then optimize the mesh until it's all even.  You could even do it manually by hand using soft select and transform tools, if you had to. 

poopipe

I'd map it using cylindrical or spherical projection and work from there.that way you only have to adjust in one axis 

LaurentiuN

You have 2 options here, straighten your UV like @BIGTIMEMASTER sayied or use tri-planar projection.

AJWhyles

BIGTIMEMASTER said:

you can still straighten the UV even if it has holes in it. 

I am not familiar with the program you are using there. In maya I would grab the border UV's, align them straight, pin them, and then optimize the mesh until it's all even.  You could even do it manually by hand using soft select and transform tools, if you had to. 

Thanks for the response. It's Blender that I'm using. Maybe it boils down to me not knowing enough about unwrapping certain objects. It's easy until I cut the holes out and the topology changes. The topology flows around the cutouts. Like when people unwrap a characters face, the UV's are never straight because I thought it was impossible to do? It's essentially unwrapping a circle with no break in it and trying to get it straight. 
I've tried aligning the mesh and straightening the UV's manually. I can get the islands straight and as close to even as I can, but even then, the pattern is warped slightly in certain areas. I'll have to experiment more. If you guys say it's possible, then I'll just have to figure it out. 

s1dK said:

You have 2 options here, straighten your UV like @BIGTIMEMASTER sayied or use tri-planar projection.

I've tried triplanar, which works fine as long as there's no pattern involved that you need to go in a specific direction. Thanks though. 

Eric Chadwick

Even with a cylindrical re-projection, you'll still encounter distortion where the surface slopes down towards the bottom, because the radius gets smaller. And you're trying to cram the same number of divots on it.

For an accurate projection, you'll want to model the divots instead of attempting to map it. Then bake the model into a texture using the UVs.

The divots decrease in number as the surface radius decreases.

Might be best to use floaters.

On the other hand, you might not need 100% accuracy. How close will the viewer ever get to this?

AJWhyles

Eric Chadwick said:

Even with a cylindrical re-projection, you'll still encounter distortion where the surface slopes down towards the bottom, because the radius gets smaller. And you're trying to cram the same number of divots on it.

For an accurate projection, you'll want to model the divots instead of attempting to map it. Then bake the model into a texture using the UVs.

The divots decrease in number as the surface radius decreases.

Might be best to use floaters.

On the other hand, you might not need 100% accuracy. How close will the viewer ever get to this?

Hey Eric, I didn't actually think of baking it. That does sound like the best option. I already have it modelled with the divots in but the poly count was ridiculous. Why didn't I think of baking it? :P Using Blenders modifiers it doesn't take long to model. 

The divots keep the same number right until the end but just become more squashed. I'm looking at the speaker now. But I believe Blenders deform modifier does this anyway. 

It's for a product visualisation shot and it's going to be rendered at 8k with some close-up shots. So needs to be pretty accurate. Thanks for this though. I think baking is the one! I'll report back with the result later in the week.