Here we shall complete the coat, hands and boots detail. And then move onto the tech arm and upper legs.
This is a prime example of my flaw I was telling you about in mappinbg also...although it is most evident in the boots. When considering mapping, especially when it comes to organic type shapes as they are always more difficult, it is best to consider your model as an object of clothing. More importantly it's 'seams' that make it up. A trenchcoat, for example, has seams at the arm/shoulder joints, down the sides and all over the place. These seams are where you should place the edges of maps if you need to break up an object. I happened to forget this on this round, but certainly paid for it on the boots and jacket. So ALWAYS keep the final texture in mind when mapping, as thinking that far ahead will make the texturing SOOO much easier.
I will also cover how to export your mapping information into individual maps using Texporter.
Here I will continue as I have showing you each step as I go along visually more than telling you each step. Practice what you have learned, play around with other methods to see if any suit you better than the couple I have taught you (and if you find anything better, give me a yell! :)
We shall start by selecting the second map channel. It has the cylindrical map of the coat done, and 'the rest' that has been untouched. We'll clean up the coat first however.
Using Poly select with 'select Element' on, I grab the coat and move it out in the clear. I then start to move the vertices around so that's it' easier to see, and then flip the areas I can.
Here is the areas I plan to flip. Although I will actually move the belt clear so I can have the holes on one side and not the other as well as put it on the very edge of the map to take up the least amount of space for the most texture quality.
Once flipped, I can space out the areas some (especially around the belt) so that each polygon get's their respective map space. We then have the main part of the coat done.
After that I used a cylinder with a UVW Map to use as a base to acquire the mapping coordinates for the arm and wrist, I then moved the overlapping wrist polys out from under the coat.
After that I select the hand and applied a planar map across the z axis. Giving me a top view of the hand which I then halved by using the ignore backface and selecting the hand again, detaching the edge vertices and moving the hand elements apart.
After that, I selected each finger and overlapped them, as each finger is pretty much the same as the next and the size difference would stretch only a little. So I overlapped all the tops of the fingers, and then all the underneath of the fingers respectivelly.
After those were done, I laid it out like so, with the remaining area left over for the legs and boots.
Still using the main two examples of planar mapping along averaged normals, x,y or z axis and acquiring maps from specifically made objects I created the rest of the map as follows.
Now all there is left is the upper legs and tech arm elements on the 3rd map channel.
After needing to texture it I found that my areas of 'squares' weren't as square as I thought. Resulting in a couple of areas that stretched or squished. As much as this can be editied in the texture itself, it DOES make thing more timeconsuming in the long run. Especially if you plan on doing multiple textures on the one base. So for the good of your own sanity, and especially someone elses if the texturing is to be done by someone else, MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE that everything is in propoortion.
Here is the start of the tech hand and upper leg.
Note that I place them all nice and neat as I can, this isn't necessarily the best placement as you can only really tell that after everything is placed and sized up. However, I start placing the elements together like this so I can get an idea of whats what...neatly organised like this is better than parts all over the place.
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I have now added the elbow joint area, mostly using the unfold and planar mapping tools.
And the final parts of the tech arm. As you can see I have moved a lot of this around from the previous step. This is because some of the elements weren't as big as I would have liked in comparison to others. For example, the shoulder joint, elbow and wrist area should be more prominent than the interior of the bicep, and the polys that you only see a small amount of.
This is the final step in regards to your model. Make sure you have completed your model as much as you possibly can, things get tricky if you decide to backtrack. So save as a different filename from here on in as well, even if it's just incremental (you possibly should be doing this anyway).
Look closely at your figures texturing, are you happy with it? Could you make the squares even more square? I found that mine COULD have been, as noted, but hopefully you would have listened and done it better.
When you are finally happy with your model we can get onto texturing, but before that we need to export the mapping coordinates into individual maps. The best way to do this in MAX, is a little free plugin called Texporter. You can get it Here.
Collapse the stack so you have your one mapped editable mesh, and save your work.
Shutdown MAX, install the plugin and boot up MAX again. To use Texporter, go to the Utilities Tab in MAX and select the 'More...' button. In this list of utilities, down the bottom, is Texporter. Select that.
In the panel comes up all the variables you use in order to make the maps. I use the following to export mine:
1. Width and Height - I make the map at least 2 times bigger than what the end result will be. You can add higher detail and scale it down later that way.
2. Polygon Fill - Along with other parts of Texporter, this gives you the white and overlap result. Handy for when you apply a multiply layer in Photoshop.
3. Edges - For simplified appearance, keep it to Edges only.
4. Only ID - Select this depending on your map channels. I have 3 on my model, so for each map I change this to 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
5. Mark Overlaps - I turn this on so that I know what areas I used as an overlap (just in case I forgot) but I make the overlap colour a very light grey so it is still mostly see through in photoshop as a multiply layer. I can turn multiply on or off if I need to see the overlaps clearer, so make it very light.
6. Selection - This makes your Polygon Fill white. Therefore making it see through as a multiply layer in Photoshop.
Once these have been selected (or whatever config suits your purposes best) select the 'Pick Object' button and select your model. It should then compute and give you the map. To save this, press the little disk icon at the top left of the map window that just appeared ( ). Do this for each of your map channels (if you have more, remember to change the ID number in the panel) and save out each one into your Maps folder. And there you have it!
To the texturing!! To the texturing!! Rah Rah Rah!!
). Do this for each of your map channels (if you have more, remember to change the ID number in the panel) and save out each one into your Maps folder. And there you have it! 