[Hexagon]Need some UV Mapping help...

[WarMachineX0]

I'm using Hexagon 2.2, and I'm UV Mapping a spaceship. I end up with too many maps to fit on one .jpg, how do I do mapping on different texture maps?

And, I'm currently sitting at 650,000 poly's, is that too much for the average computer? Should I drop it to 150,000 poly's?

Thanks.

[Piem]

Hi and welcome
handling a 650k polymesh for uvmapping in hexagon, or any uvmapper is a pain in the ass, not for the computer only if you want to unwrap.

The best would have been to make the uv at a low polygon count, but it's not so good when you add details and details again.

Try to split logical parts and to make each uv part separately.

[WarMachineX0]

Personally my computer can handle a 650Kpoly model easily, but I was planning to distribute the model for poser, and I wasn't sure if the average computer can handle 650K.

Sence I'm new at Hex, Its hard for me to tell what the average computer can handle when my computer is above avaerage.

So I should go 150K when I distribute it?

Any one know how to make multiple texture maps (.jpg's)?

Thanks.

[WarMachineX0]

Oh, sorry, forgot to ask, what is this spliting parts? is their a tutorial for that?

[PatrickDemski]

First, I would not do my UV mapping in Hex, I found it is more productive to use a tool designed especially for this purpose. So I use UVMapper Pro --

http://www.uvmapper.com/

There are other tools, but UVMapper is not very expensive and works very well.

You will need to export your spaceship to OBJ format files. This is where you "split" the model into logical parts. So you might have one OBJ file for the nose, another for the main body, another for the engine nozzles and another for the tail fins. Whatever makes sense and is easiest to re-assemble in Poser.

You then load each OBJ file into UVMapper and perform the projections that create the mapping. You save the model from UVMapper and you also save a texture template file that is produced by the mapping. You can decide to produce one template file for each OBJ file, or you can have several template files associated with a single OBJ file.

The template files can be converted to artwork in any graphics app -- I use Photoshop CS2.

Then you'll import the OBJ files into Poser and use the Materials Room to associate the texture files with the models.

[3webjam]

Patrick, thanks for the explanation - this is very clear. Wish that you could 'enhance' the explanation and turn it into a small tutorial. These kind of messages are great to learn from, but hard to find when they get delved into the forum threads.

There is so much to learn!
Jacqueline

[PatrickDemski]

Originally Posted by 3webjam

Patrick, thanks for the explanation - this is very clear. Wish that you could 'enhance' the explanation and turn it into a small tutorial. These kind of messages are great to learn from, but hard to find when they get delved into the forum threads.

There is so much to learn!
Jacqueline

Thank you Jacqueline!

I wish I had more time to do tutorials, unfortunately I must work a day job so what little spare time I have goes to modeling projects (and reading and posting on forums so I keep learning too).

I think the most important thing about 3D projects would be very hard to do a tutorial on -- the most important thing is to know your entire workflow, end-to-end, before you get too far into a project. If you don't do this, you wind up hitting problems that require massive rework and much frustration. So if you're modeling in Hex to have a final output as a Poser prop, before you build a 650K poly model, build a 300 poly model of something simple and run through the whole workflow to be sure that each phase will work like you thought it would. You'll still encounter problems along the way, but they will be smaller and more manageable. I learned this the hard way myself -- and it also keeps a long project more interesting if you can do smaller pieces end-to-end and see some early results, rather than doing all the modeling, then all the mapping, then all the assembly, etc.

[Etienne Colas]

Unwrapping tutorial with Hex - http://forums.polyloop.net/hexagon-t...p-giraffe.html