Now
that you have a passing familiarity
with the Unwrap UVW interface, let's
do some actual mapping. Before we begin,
I always like to apply a checkerboard
texture to my objects, so that it's
obvious when polygons are mapped well.
Go into the material editor, select
an unused material, expand the "Maps"
rollout, and click on the button to
the right of "Diffuse Color",
labeled "None". In the window
that pops up, double-click "Bitmap",
and go find a suitable checkerboard
texture (don't
have one? Here, use mine!) Don't
forget to click the "Show Map in
Viewport" button, and apply the
material to the object. Your object
should look something like the image
to the right.
Close
the material editor, and go back to
your Edit UVWs window (you may have
to click "Edit" again.) Note
that the object's material now shows
up as the background in the Edit UVWs
box - isn't that handy? If you don't
like it, you can always disable it by
clicking the "Show Map" button
at the top of the Edit UVWs window.
Also note the dark blue box in the grid.
That designates the boundaries of your
texture map. If you mapping coordinates
go outside of it, they'll wrap around
to the other side - so be careful. (You
really don't need to worry about that
until the end.)
Let's
take a look at the first automatic UVW
mapping method. Click on the "Mapping"
menu, then "Flatten Mapping".
Make sure the three checkboxes are checked,
and hit "OK". You'll see your
object broken up into chunks, almost
like pieces of a puzzle. If you printed
this out and cut out all the pieces,
you could actually assemble them into
a rough version of your object - they're
not perfect, but they're pretty close.
This
is a good place to stop and demonstrate
the "Select Element" feature.
Check the box as shown, then click on
any of the chunks in the Edit UVWs window.
Notice it selects the entire element,
not just the face (or edge or vertex)
you clicked on. This is a great feature
if you need to move whole chunks around.
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But
now that you've seen the default settings
for Flatten Mapping, let's experiment
a bit more. Go back to Mapping->Flatten
Mapping, and play with the parameters
a bit - specifically the "Face
Angle Threshold" spinner. A bigger
number will generally result in larger
chunks, while a smaller number will
produce smaller, but more numerous chunks
(there will also be less stretching.)
I used values of 75 and 25 for these
examples. Depending on how you're going
to texture the object, both results
have their merits. As for me, I'm not
quite happy yet, so let's play with
some other mapping methods.
Go
back to the "Mapping" menu,
and click on "Normal Mapping."
In the dropdown menu at the top, select
"Box Mapping". All of the
options are useful, but box mapping
more than others. Hit OK to see the
results. The object has been broken
into six chunks, each mapped from a
different direction. This has a major
advantage over the box mapping option
in the normal "UVW Map" modifier
- the six views of the object aren't
all placed on top of each other. But
play with the options, try some of the
other mapping methods (Left/Right Mapping,
perhaps?) and see if you find something
you like. If not, well, we're going
to have to do something a little more
complicated.
Of
the two automatic methods we've looked
at, Flatten Mapping is probably the
most promising. But if you have a complicated
object, or need more carefully placed
UVW coordinates, there are lots of options
left.
