Quetion of a Newb

Hello,
I just completed my first project building something in SL, and now I would like to apply some textures to it.
My object is a "flying saucer" shaped UFO. I would like to make a texture to make it look more like a ship, and less like gray egg

Anyways I was thinking that if I apply a texture to the "flattened sphere" I would not be able to add detail. ie: I would like to have the top half of the ship different then the bottom half.

Is there a way to make a texture so when it is applied to the object I can have some areas look different then others?

I know this is kinda cryptic, I am at work right now and can’t attach a screen shot.

Anyways willing to help me, or point me in the correct direction?

Thanks!
Kertain

Here's a little visual aid to help you understand how textures map onto spheres Hope this helps.

As far as I can tell, Kertain, the answer is not really.

Each prim seems to have "sides," including ones which began as spheres but get hollowed out or cut into. But that's all they have - sides.

When it is a full sphere, it has only one side and can take only one texture.

When it is part of a sphere, it takes that one texture, plus a different texture on its "edge" side. (And maybe in its middle, too, I forget.)

When it is a square, it will take a different texture on all its sides.

Here's how to have the prim have all one texture:

Let's say you have a cube. If you select the cube and select "edit" for the cube (someone correct me if I have any of this wrong), and then go to the texture tab, and then choose a texture and apply it, it will go all over that cube.

Here's how to put different textures on the same prim:

Let's say you wanted to put a texture only one the back side of the cube. Then you would select the cube, and check the box for "select texture". Then you would go back to the cube, and click on the back side of it. Then your texture would go only on that side, rather than all over it. You would do the same for the other sides.

But if you have a sphere, or maybe some similarly contiguous sort of prim (I'm not sure which are like this besides the sphere), then you are stuck having the same texture on all of it. You can't divide it in half - you would have to have two actual different prims next to each other in order to put different textures on them.

And you can't go back - AS FAR AS I KNOW - and add yet another texture - say eyes, or windows - onto something that already has a texture on it, because it will just remove that first texture, rather than layering another one on it.

If any of this is wrong, someone please correct me.

coco

Sounds right to me Coco. When working with the outside of a sphere you need to create the texture to have a different top and bottom but still be a single texture.

From what yall tell me I need to create a one texture that has everything I want on it, and just "wrap" it around my object.

The hard part it would seem is getting the correct parts to show up in the correct location on the sphere.

How am I to know where SL is going to start the texture and what location are the two ends are going to meet?

If I can get that down, I can design a texture to wrap in the proper orientation and all should look grand!

Thank you for your help everyone!

Study the reference pic I posted. The top and bottom of your texture will get squished down to a single point at the north and south poles of the sphere. The left and right edges of your texture will meet at a vertical seam on the sphere, so you'll want to make sure the texture tiles gracefully horizontally or that you make it appear as if the seam is supposed to be there. The top half of your texture will be on the top half of the sphere, the bottom will be on the bottom half For a real world example take a look at a map of the earth in any atlas (also known as a mercator map). If you took that map and applied it to a sphere in SL you'd end up with a correct looking earth. Hope that helps.

Ok that makes sense.

You would not any guide lines or help sites for making SL textures would you?
I have some PSP experiance, but I could use the help


Thank!
Kertain

On the texture page, there are things you can do to adjust your texture once it is on.

One is to adjust the repeats, both horizontal and vertical. Messing around with these, you can get the picture or pattern into the proper proportions. Once you have messed with these, that prim will forever after have those same repeats, unless you change them again. So if you were to decide to use an entirely different texture, you would probably have to adjust those again.

It is common to have to adjust those, since the texture you are using doesn't generally begin with the exact same dimensions as the prim you are texturing.

Another useful thing is "offset". This way you can move the texture up or down, or from one side to another.

For instance, when I am making my signboard that says "Coco Decor" on it, I will adjust the size of that board to wherever I'm putting it up at, so it will look best. This I do by stretching the sign, with "stretch texture" also checked off, I think. But in any case, it usually needs adjusting once I have changed the dimensions of the sign (prim) this texture is on.

I will need to move the words a bit up, maybe, and a bit to the right. Now you can do this just by clicking the up and down arrows available on the "offset vertical" and "offset horizontal" buttons. But you are not limited to that, and that does move it quite a bit. You can also manually type in smaller increments, which I always have to do when centering "Coco Decor."

You can also use this "offset" feature to picture only part of a texture on the side of a prim. If you are putting a complex photograph on there, for instance, and you really don't want to have the top portion of it show, you can offset the texture, perhaps after sizing it first (using repeats), until it no longer does.

coco

Very helpful, thanks much for the advise!