U and V and textures

What do the letters "U" and "V" in the "offset" and "repeats per face" settings on the texture tab stand for?

Are they just cannonical names for scalars, as I first assumed, or is it something more sinister?

In any event, it might be a good idea to change them to something more intuitive.

UV is referring to how the texture is mapped on the object.

These sites have nice examples and might help some.

http://www.lightwave3d.com/tutorials/surface/uv_mapping/advanced_uv_mapping.html

http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/tutuv.htm


I agree it is not a very common term outside of 3d and tech realms and understand how it can be confusing.

Hope this helps.


offset

Moves texture one directions or another, making it easier to line up texture and match objects.

I'm not sure what would be more intuitive than the proper terms, myself. What would you suggest? Maybe better documentation/tutorials/teaching on how to use it?

The proper terms are, of course, the right thing to use if you are talking to 3d-modelers, but try this exchange out:

"Can I change where the texture starts on the object to the middle of the object?"
"Sure, just set the U and the V to 0.5"
"???"

Maybe uppy-downy and lefty-righty arrows are the way to go.

Yes, but in the end, you'd be better off having them learn once what 'U' and 'V' mean than by changing the names to something else. You might as well change 'X', 'Y', and 'Z' while you're at it. I can see changing the arrows to up and down and left and right. But depending on the orientation of the object, the arrow might have the exact opposite effect. Who can say that this is any less confusing? I dunno to me, the first thing to do is to play with it. What does U offset do? What does V offset do? After that, it becomes pretty clear.
I'm not disagreeing that it's not the most intuitive thing to learn, I'm just saying that I think we'd be better off with better aids to learn it rather than by changing the terminology, which could confuse people who DO know it.

U and V were chosen because they make sense to people who have had experience applying textures to 2D and 3D objects. U and V are often used as an alternative orthogonal pair of axes when X and Y are already taken.

That said, I think I saw a bug filed that suggests that we change those terms to something more intuititve. If anyone has opinions on this matter then they should make themselves heard in this thread.

V is Vertical
U is.. um.. Urisontal?

Naw, that's too technical.

V is Vertical
U is Unvertical

#!

How about:

V is Vertical
U is Utherway

LOL! I vote for Tracey's....Utherway...hehe