Blender - Problem saving UV Face Layout

I am trying to learn texturing in Blender, but things aren't going well.

I have made a texture layout in a new image, but the problem is when I go to "UV/scripts/Save UV face layout" and save it as a tga, the result is not as it appears in the Blender image. The tga has extra outlines and lines which do not appear in the Blender layout image. One of the outlines appears to be the outline of the sculpt and there is an extra line in the middle of no where. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Also...I am trying to texture a multese cross which has six sides. I think I need to rotate the sculpt to the view I need to work on and unwrap each of the three views, but when I do that, I lose the image layout from the previous view in Blender.
How do I make a texture map for the four sides of the sculpt?

I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to achieve. A picture of the UV Layout and the export might help.

As far as the cross goes, it sounds like you need to learn about marking seams. Say you have reference pictures of the cross that you want to use for texturing, then you would mark seams that align with the edges of the object in the reference picture. Once all seams are marked, you unwrap and then arrange the uv islands in the UV Image Editor to match the reference. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics#Mark_a_seam has a basic example of using seams.

If each of the views is a separate image, you can select the faces for an image then select the image in the UV Image Editor. This way each of the 4 islands can go to a different image without needing to do a separate uv layer for each.

Ummm... this is for use as a sculpt in SL, right?

There is only one UV map that is going to work, for that, and it's a perfectly flat square, like the one you would get from unwrapping a sphere, or a cylinder with no endcaps.

Domino is correct, for working with meshes in programs that can read UV maps. But SL, sadly, isn't one of them. At least not yet.

I'm just beginning to learn Blender myself; so I can't help you much.

But I can tell you that unless your cross is a topological cylinder with no end caps, you're not going to be able to make a successful sculpt from it.

On the other hand if it is, that is, if you made it from pieces with poles between them, and if you pulled it all out you could shape it into a cylinder without adding or deleting any polys, just moving vertices around, then you need to map it to show that. The UV Map has to have perfectly even squares all over it, and totally fill the UV Space.

Hope this helps!

I'm assuming it's a second UV map for using reference pictures as a texture source when baking to the sculptie compatible layer

Ah, yes. That would work.

So you can bake textures in Blender? Very cool.

That means anyone who wants to can remap the model and bake textures right on it to make perfect jackets, bake textures to sculpties, paint directly on the model, and all that stuff. All they have to do is learn Blender...

Did I mention that Lynda.com has a Blender tutorial up now?

Yep, and it can also bake from a high poly model to a low poly one, so it's possible to literally make clothes around the avatar model and then bake them to it. Once I've got Primstar 1.0 out, I'll be going back to the avatar scripts to look at supporting appearance import as well. Then things will get interesting

Robin,
Yes this is a sculpt for SL. It's not the sculpt that is the problem. I do have to mod it to reduce the triangles, but it's texturing all sides of this type of sculpt that is the problem I am having. It is made from a cylinder with closed ends of four sections with scale zero between the sections, then rotated and grouped to form the cross. This is the only way I could find to make this cross. If anyone knows a better way to make this, I would love to hear it.

I don't have a photo of the sculpt, but here is a link to a photo of something similar I am trying to make.
http://www.radiantz.com.au/tail-lights_files/c34_data/ironcross.jpg
My cross has 90° angles from the front and back to the sides. The front has a recess for the red light and then angled up to form the frame like in the photo. The only curves are the sides of the arms of the cross.

I will be using photo references for the textures. I need to be able to bring this texture layout into Gimp to work with it.

I can't upload a photo of my saved texture layout tga, because the forum has a problem.
I will try to explain the problem. If you look at the cross in the photo link for reference. First I created a new image in Blender. Then I selected the entire sculpt and unwrap/unwrap project from view. It shows the whole mess outline of the sculpt in the image layout as expected. I deselect the sculpt and select only the recessed part for the red light texture for that layout, then the frame part and then the back for the next two layouts. This gave me three layouts in the texture layout image which look like what I need. However when I saved this as a tga, the result is an extra single line outline of the cross in the center of the image, plus a small short line where no part of the sculpt was selected. I don't know why this is happening. It appears to work with no problem in the video tutorial with the hard hat.

The second problem is I don't know how to make the sides and top and bottom texture layouts in the same layout image as the front and back, because when I change the rotation of the sculpt to be able to s e l e c t the sides or top and bottom, the three previous outlines of the front disappear f r o m the image layout. I am guessing I have to make three seperate layouts for each view of the sculpt and seem them as suggested. How do I layout these outlines to group them into one image...if that is what I have to do?

A good video tutorial on how to texture this type of sculpt would be very helpful

Hi Layla!

Where did you make this sculpt, please? When you load the sclupt into SL, do you get a sculpt that is untextured, but looks like it should?

Because the thing about sculpts is that they already have UV Maps. The map looks the same, no matter what the sculpt looks like. It's a simple square, with smaller squares inside; 64 rows of 64 columns.

Like all the other UV Maps in SL, this was put in place by the Lindens, and there is nothing at all that any of us can do about it.

So; your choice (assuming that it looks correct in SL, which means that it has the right UV Map in place) is to either paint on the model, using the tools in Blender, or to remap it, texture it using your images, and then bake that map onto the UV Map that is part of the sculpt.

The latter is what Domino and I were discussing. I know the principal (and can do it in LightWave or modo) but I don't know how to do this in Blender. I'm just learning the program, and haven't gotten that far yet.

Domino would be able to tell you, though. He's the Resident Blender Expert, after all!

Wow! I can't wait. Thanks for all the work you do.

In the UV Image Editor toolbar there is an icon that looks like a single quad face. This is "Sync UV and Mesh Selection". If you turn it on, you can do the selection on the UV map rather than the mesh. With it off, you can only work on the UV mapping for the parts of the mesh you have selected. It just sounds like you missed some faces.

Robin,
I made the sculpt in Blender. It displays perfect in SL except for the triangles I forgot to reduce, so I just have to take the adjacent rings and scale it to .1 or so. This will bring them close to the triangle vertices center reducing the triangles. Normally when I make a sculpt from a cylinder mesh, I close the ends ends or a section to .01. Then I scale the next ring to .1.
This does two things for me.
First, scaling to .01 instead of .0 gives me the option to rescale or modify, since after you scale to .0 you cannot rescale if you do not have any undos left.
Second, scaling the next ring to .1 brings that ring close to the center vertices of the triangles, reducing the triangles and allowing quads from then out, giving a good appearance to the ends of sculpt.
Last, when everything is good, before I bake, I rescale all the .01s ends to .0 to close them, then bake.


Domino,
I will try that sync button and hopefully it will help me figure out how to make the texture map for the whole sculpt.

My problem is I still don't know how to include the sides and top/bottom of the sculpt in the texture map. I will review the videos again and go back into Blender and see if I have any progress.

I can't figure out to texture this shape of sculpt and can't find a video on how to do it. The sculpt has six sides and I need to be able to texture each side.

If I make the texture layout in front view only like in the video, the sides of the sculpt in the layout are only a line and not a mesh. If change to a side view to try to unwrap for the side layouts to display right, the front view changes too.

How do I do this? I'm about to give up. Some please help. A video on exactly how to do this would help.

Layla, you keep trying to figure out how to make a UV map for this, right?

Forget that. You only need that if you want to burn your painted textures from your map onto the sculpt. Burning is a process by which Blender looks at the texture on the model, including lighting, and paints that texture onto a specific UV Map, which you choose. In this case, you would choose to use the totally even square that the Lindens have assigned as the universal UV Map for Sculpts.

If you're not going to do that, then just paint on it, there in Blender. Turn it around, and paint on the parts you need to texture.

The UV Map that it's going to use in SL is beyond your control. It's fixed by the Lindens, and if the sculpt looks right in world, it's already there.

No matter how beautifully or elegantly you UV Map it, that map will be discarded when you upload your sculpt, and the Linden Sculpt Map will be used instead. If you don't intend to Burn your texture onto the sculpt map, then you're just wasting your time trying to make one.

So stop trying to remap the thing, and just paint on the map that's there already.

You can see how to do the painting with this video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=504685405415690540

Ignore all the part where he's making a UV Map. You should already have one there. I have no idea how to choose which UV map you are looking at, if you've been trying to map it. Ask Domino.

Robin,
Ok now I'm really confused...

All I am trying to do is put textures on different parts of the cross just like in the first Machinimatrix texturing video. Now you are trying to tell me not to do that. I looked at the video you posted and it's just more confusing. I mean I can see how to paint right on it, but that's not what I want.

I want the recess part red and the rest will be a chrome texture or transparent using SL color/shine for the chrome, using photo references just like it shows in the video. The only difference is I want to be able to bring the texture layout into Gimp, so it has to be saved as a TGA...just like it says in the video.

If you looked at the photo reference of the cross I posted you will see what it is supposed to look like.

Make the cross as I explained and texture it as in the photo....then tell me how you did it. Let me know if you have the same problem when you try to make the texture layout parts for the sides and the top/bottom....

Layla, I haven't seen the video you are referring to. I don't even know where to go to see it; did you post a link that I missed?

I know what a Maltese cross looks like. I can understand where you're having problems.

However, the shape of your sculpt is not important to the point I'm trying to make. It doesn't matter at all what shape it is.

All I'm trying to explain is that you either have to bake the texture, paint right on the model, or paint on the UV Map that the Lindens provide. Those are your only choices.

Since I'm getting the impression that you don't know how to bake a texture, you are limited to the second two.

Or you can learn how to remap the thing.

I can't teach you; I've never done a single thing in Blender. I'm a rank beginner, working my way through the Lynda.com courses. So far, I've found out several things about the interface.

Once you have learned to remap it, and textured your model, you can learn how to bake the textures onto the UV Map that Lindens use for all sculpts.

You can *not* remap the model, and bring it into SL with your maps. SL doesn't work that way.

There is one, and only one, UV Map used for all the sculpts in the entire grid; and it's the one I've now described several times. There is no other. No matter what you think you saw somewhere else, I assure you that the textures had to go on the UV Map that's assigned to all sculpts.

I only entered this discussion because I had a feeling, from reading your post, that you thought that it was possible to make a UV Map in Blender and then somehow get the model to use those UVs in SL.

It's not.

I thought it only fair to warn you about that before you knocked your brains out on a map that you can't use in-world anyway. (I didn't realize you can bake things in Blender, when I made my first post.)

That's all I'm saying. And now I've said it several times.

Robin,
If I may help, I think the videos Layla is referring to are the Machinimatrix ones:

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2008/05/12/blender-surface-textures/#more-12
and
http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2008/09/01/texturizing-with-multiple-images/

Oops, sorry Robin,
I didn't realize I didn't post the link to the video tutrorials.
I also did not mean to come across brash. I am just so fustrated because things are not working out and when I follow the video, I don't get the same exact thing and can't seem to find my way.
I don't think we were understanding each other iether. I am trying to make a texture layout to apply photo textures in Blender and or in Gimp. I assumed the UV map you were talking about is the same thing as the texture layout I was referring to. So when you say it can't be done and they are doing it in the video, I just got more confused and fustrated.
I understand that the UV map is a perfect square grid that SL uses and the textures are applied to that, which is what I am trying to do using the texture layout. I hope the Manimatrix videos help show what I am trying to do with my cross.
When I said to make a cross and texture it, I was hoping it would help find out if I'm doing something wrong and you might find the correct way.


Thanks for posting those links Drifter.

The tutorial I am referring to is the first one. I now think that won't work for the cross though and trying to use it on the cross was the problem. It seems to only work for rounded sculpts.
I am going to look at the second method using multiple images. I think that is the correct method for the cross... I just have to get it to work lol.

In my searches, I did come across tutorials for seaming, but I won't tackle that until I fully understand the layout method.

Okay, that's the "Remap & Bake" choice.

In that case, if you want to remap it, I would go with Domino's suggestion from way back at the beginning, if I were you, and learn how to break the thing apart at the seams for mapping.

Although, if I understand correctly the way you build your cross, whole rows of polys will have the same color, and there won't be polygons that have some of one color and some of another, right?

If that's the case, you might just want to assign colors to those polygons. I'd do that with Materials in the 3D apps I'm familiar with. I assume there's something of the same nature in Blender.

Make the ones that are supposed to be shiny shiny in Blender, and so on.

Then bake the whole thing, with the colors, reflections and lighting, and you'll get a texture that perfectly matches the sculpt you have.

At least, that's how I'd do it. Faster and easier than painting it all by hand, since you can bake things in Blender.

There has to be a tut out there somewhere about assigning materials to polygons.

There's a few

The fifth video from Blender Underground is all about materials and has a segment on assigning multiple materials to meshes.
http://blenderunderground.com/video-tutorials/
I recommend beginners to Blender watch all five videos.

There's the official documentation at http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Materials/Multiple_Materials

and a few more here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+assigning+multiple+materials
(take the space out of that one - the forum is adding it, but on edit it looks fine??)

Plus many I've no doubt missed.

I gave up on trying to texture last time because nothing was working the way the machinimatrix videos show.

Now need to do texturing and I am trying to get it to work again..and still nothing is working out right. I follow the machinimatrix texturing videos step by step and still do not get the same results. I am so pissed!

I have no idea why this is not working. I am so mad I can't get this to work. The only difference is I am not using an image in blender. All I want to do is make the UV face layout to apply textures in Gimp.

First off, when I make a new UV texture and rename it "projectionmap", my UV image goes all blue still. When I get past this and unwrap/project from view things seem to work ok. I see the texture layout of the mesh faces in the UV Image window and arrange them. Then in the UV image window I go to UV/Scripts/Save UV face Layout and save it as a tga. Then I go to the folder and look at the tga image and I see the faces I layed out, but there is an additional face layout, but only the outlines, just like it did before. If I go back and unselect, then all my face layout disappears from the UV Image window. I can't get rid of this additional face outline which is not supposed to be there.

When I tried to make a complex texture map and combine the images, I get the error there is only one image selected. No problem right? NOT!... the video says go into object mode and combine the images..I still get only one image is select error. This does not work.


Please make a step by step video in which all steps give the correct result in Blender,
on how to make and save the UV face layout to save as a tga to bring into photoshop or Gimp for both simple and complex sculpts.

@Robin and Domino: How exciting to finally post in a thread you two are active in! I have studies so much of your work endlessly, and it's an honor. Robin, if you're interested, I have been sketching out an idea for creating a dummy template in Blender for projection painting skins and clothing. It's rough in development right now. But I do believe it would be possible to create non-deformed clothing patterns in Photoshop or Gimp and then use a series of Blender views at 15% increments to paint projections onto the base avatar mesh. This would, in theory, allow you to have repetitive patterns, straight lines, etc in an easy to paint Gimp file and let Blender deal with all the avatar distortion. Drop me an IM or notecard inworld if you'd like to hear more or perhaps collaborate.

@ Layla:

HI Layla,

I, too, am just learning to sculpt in blender and working with creating attractive textures for those sculpties. To that end, I have watched the Machinimatrix videos many times as well as others available.

I believe I understand what you're asking: You want to know how to generate a UV layout map in blender for your sculptie similar to the avatar UV layouts Robin Sojourner created for making clothing textures. Then you want to be able to open that template in GIMP to paint your cross. Yes?

The bad news is that you cannot do what you want to do exactly that way. The good news is that you can do it, and you're really really really close to being where you need to be.

First off, just to clarify a few subtle points - there is a subtle difference between the questions you are asking and the solutions Gaia provides. It's small, but important. In her first video, she is not creating a UV map to export. She is instead arranging several projected views onto the same image and then saving it to her hard drive to be used in her image program.

That's mostly what you want to do, so you may want to check out her video again. I believe, however, that your sculptie is much more complicated than hers, so you will have to use many more views. In hers, she basically used four views - a left/right pair for the outside and the inside of the helmet.

In yours, because of its shape, you will need at least six views - a front and back for the main detail, a left and right for the sides, and a top and bottom. Remember that the helmet Gaia is using is a large curved surface, so theoretically two views can capture all the faces on it. In your cross, a front and back view (two only) will not cover the sides, top, or bottom faces, which are "hidden" from that perspective.

Unfortunately, since you are creating a custom sculptie, there is not quick click-one-button way to generate those templates for you.

Gaia's second video, the one about using multiple textures, would actually be a much easier solution for your situation. Since you created your Maltese cross from a reference photo, your sculptie should have basically those dimensions. Or close enough, anyway.

If you use the same reference photos in Gimp, you should be able to easily paint front, sides, back, top, and bottom views of your cross. You were going to have to paint them anyway. Use your photo reference as your template, what I believe you wanted when you said you needed a UV Map of the sculptie. If that reference is the same in Gimp and Blender, your texture and your sculptie should be nearly identical in dimensions, which will make the next step easier.

Then in Blender, use either the multiple images technique from Gaia's second video or the projection painting method. Since the cross is fairly simple geometrically, Gaia's method might be easiest.

If you are interested in projection painting it, there is an excellent video on CGCookie.com which can be viewed here: http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/06/18/texturing-with-projection-painting/ There are some excellent Blender tutorials by that same trainer available for download on the site. They are not specific to Second Life, but are excellent nonetheless.

Just fyi, this technique works well for basic sculpties, but the avatar mesh is really complicated and deforms badly, so unfortunately, projection painting a skin is not as easy for us as it is for him using his model.

What I really drew from his video was the concept that you are "stenciling on" the projections to the UV Map or color map. That concept of stenciling helped me grasp the whole process.

So, in summary, I would recommend you just paint your texture in Gimp right now and get that done Then use Gaia's second technique to make the projection fit the painting, which should be fairly simple since they are based on the same photo reference. Or, alternatively, use Gaia's first technique to create a projection view of your sculptie from a bunch of different perspectives, and use that view as your Gimp template.

In either case, you will need to have Blender bake those colormaps into a final texture. That's the step where the realistic views are distorted to fit the sculptie map.

Important points to make your life easier.

#1 If you use the projection painting technique: Watch the CG cookie tutorial and note down the steps for creating the projected views. You should at a minimum have a front view, a back view, and two side views. Do this first!!! and then save your .blend file so you don't end up duplicating a bunch of work while you're still learning.

#2 Use occlude background whenever possible. Watch Gaia's Machinimatrix videos again and use her "Occlude Background Geometry" suggestion. Basically, for each view you are projecting, you don't want to deal with all the vertexes or faces behind what you want to paint at that exact moment. The CG cookie video also shows this, but I believe Gaia's is sufficient.

#3, Make sure you have enough detailed views in Gimp. You will want a full front, back texture, yes. But if you want to use the projection painting method, you should also "paint" the side, top, and bottom views, unless you want them all to have an identical texture.

Sorry if this is long and/or repetitive. As I said, I'm still learning this myself, and I'm not a tutorial writer. All my best, and I hope this was at least partly helpful!

~s~

Sierra,
Thank you for taking the time to help. The additial GC Cookie tutorial is interesting. I will have to give it a try when I use photo references.

I have not been able to find any other tutorials on this.
The Machinimatrix tutorials do not work no matter how many times I try. I know the two videos show two different methods. I know I need 6 views for complex sculpts and combine them. There is always an error combining and the work around in the video does not work.

I cannot paint the texture first in Gimp, because it needs to have specific details in specific spots on the sculpt, not a generalized texture. I know the face layout method is the best choice for the texturing I need to do, but does not work right and do not know why..and no one else seems to know either.

Can someone try to do what I'm trying to do and let me know what results you get?


Aside from this, I have been using the texture guide from sculpt studio since it is 1024 gives the most accurate guide, although there is a lot of waisted time going back and forth trying to get things right, because this method stretches the textures to fit the stretched mesh and circles end up oblong and etc. Also this method does not allow for higher details with less pixels since it is not baked on.

Something else I found out is Photoshop can import .obj and you can paint directly on or paste a photo reference on the 3d .obj.

Works for me. I wouldn't use this technique though as I explained before. I think we'd really need to see a blend file at this point to figure out what is wrong.