skinning in xsi

kendo

I have followed some of the tuts on ed harris and on xsi.com but on each tutorial i have followed they all start out with the texture maps already created. Im not really used to working like this and would prefer to use the old max method of creating the uv maps and then painting over them in photoshop. Im pretty new to xsi so im hoping im missing a simple method to do this or perhaps someone knows of a good tutorial i would be very grateful.

JED

http://www.finalgathering.com/tut/texture/te.html

got that one from here:

http://www.xsibase.com/tutorials/surfacing.php

more texturing related stuff:

http://pages.infinit.net/njapowa/Tutorials/TXTSupportsandProjections.doc

http://www.isner.com/tutorials/texture_primer.htm

which I got from here:

http://www.xsifiles.com/

You already have the ed harris link so I'll skip it.

Other than those I didn't use much in the way of online learning material. I highly recommend getting the XSI training dvd bundle, or even just the ones that are relevant to you. It's well worth the price and you'll learn more at a faster pace than reading a book or hunting for web links.

http://www.3dtutorial.com/xsi.php

That site also has some great video training material. I bought some of the modeling and rigging videos from there when I first started messing with the HL2 EXP release.

kendo

Thanks for the reply and the links, none of them really anwser my question though. They all start out with the textures already made and im asking is there a way to create a uv to paint over in xsi. Maybe im being stupid here but it just seems alittle backward to draw up a texture and then try and fit it to the model.

JED

Ok I thought for sure that reading a couple of those would help you piece it together. Sorry, I'll try and give a really quick rundown of UV mapping in XSI for you.

http://www.gwot.net/pub/XSI_UVs/XSI_UV_Tutorial.htm
I had some other quick videos I'd captured previously that are UV related so I included them as well.

Sorry I couldn't do the whole thing in video... might be easier to follow. Maybe at a later date...

kendo

A huge thank you that cleared things up nicely, it was mainly the stamp feature i was interested in.

JED

Good to hear, glad to help. Keep digging in that texture editor - there's a lot of cool stuff in there to make UV mapping less painful. I find I get a lot of use out of island selection, all the healing tools, Relax, and the match tool as well (good for synching up mirrored/overlapping geometry without having to tweak it a lot.

The Move Elements tool ('m' key) is also great for tweaking. Especially when combined with SHIFT (drags all overlapping verts as one) and CTRL (good for snapping).