hey Meph, since you are an expert on Unwrapping Texturing maybe you can help me.
When I create the texturing I want, then when I start to apply it, I select EDIT, to begin the mapping on the Model, but the texture is always blured, but never sharp and clean....hope that made sence.
Hehe, yup, the more you get the hang of texturing, the more fun it becomes; I've spent many an afternoon, happily painting and drawing the large texture I used for the Olympic.
That's some seriously nice progress that you're showing mate. If I compare this pic to the ones with the black wings... :thumb: I'm also liking the new hull.
hey Meph, since you are an expert on Unwrapping Texturing maybe you can help me.
When I create the texturing I want, then when I start to apply it, I select EDIT, to begin the mapping on the Model, but the texture is always blured, but never sharp and clean....hope that made sence.
Hmmm two things going on here, one: you're working in the wrong order two: a simple option you can change when editing unwraps.
*side note: first give your to be unwrapped part an uvw unwrap of the closest fitting gizmo (plane, sphere, box etc etc)*
For the second (shortest explanation ) When you have the edit unwrap screen open, on the little bottom left meny bar you can click on 'options' and there again on the bottom left you can see the pixel size of your work area. There the max pixel size on one side is 1024 pixels so you'll either have to guess or calculate the other value a bit .
For the first one: If you do the above first and the decided the size of your 'work area' it's best place all your unwrappings neatly apart you have for instance the top and bottom correcly scaled and next apart, some smaller parts or other sides too. This way you create a template that's easy to paint on in photoshop. Vizualize it like this, you take a 3D shape cut every part loose from the rest and 'unfold' them so that if you would would print it out on paper and cut it out you could glue it together and have your 3D spare. The best way to seperate the mess of polygons and verteces I find to first roughly take the mess apart is with select 'polygons' and 'select element', the unwrap with a first applied uwv map modifier. It's actlually is pretty 'smart' most of the time so that with 'select element' you can pick it apart in pretty large and correct chuncks, slowly piect it apart like this, then followed by puzzling the loose polygons to correct large chunks. Then scale everything to more or less to proportion of the model itself and pick 'tools/render uvw template' and set the colour for the seams also to pure white (standard fluo-green). For the pixel size, set your largest size to the amount of pixels you intend to paint on in Photoshop. Example: the left-upper flank section of the bow of the Olympic would have been roughly set to 1024x500 pixels in the edit unwrapper but exported as +-8000x4000 pixels. The 'guess ratio' button usually is acceptably accurate too. Click render and you get a white on black picture. Save it as jpg or png, import it in a new psd, invert it, take your time to manually and accurately erase all unecesarry verextes so you end up with a 'blueprint' of your shapes and modeled details like paneling etc etc. lock the layer, always keep it as your top layer and voila, you have the perfect template to start painting accurately and detailed. After you made and saved all your textures (diffuse, specular, bump, opacity etc.) go to max, make the material, assign the textures, assign the whole lot to your mesh, render and if necesarry, go back into the edit unwrap and finetune any errors...
I do know that this seems like and is a few hours work most of the time to do decently but trust me, it seriously pays off in the end. You really can go deep and detailed this way all in one go one one solid flow (for me usually a full afternoon a big texture of two maximum and/or perhaps a few smaller ones). And since the whole process is more or less in one go it allows mentally satisfying big chunk of work done with presentable results.
The better you get the hang of this the faster you'll work and the more complex shapes you'll take on, resulting in an even bigger payoff.
As an example; the bow section of the Olympic was first cut into: upper bow-left, lower bow-keel, front keel, front-keel-rim, bow 'wings', top bow section, bow aft section, and the landing pads in three pieces too. Several weeks later when I started mapping the engine pods, I took 1 big engine pod pod (one of 4 identical ones) as one gigantic piece, unwrapped it meticulously and textured that whole monstrosty in one go in a few hours while I spent days on the bow section!
For the second (shortest explanation ) When you have the edit unwrap screen open, on the little bottom left meny bar you can click on 'options' and ther again on the bottom left you can see the pixel size of your work area. There the max pixel size on one side is 1024 pixels so you'll either have to guess or calculate the other value a bit .
BINGO!....thats was was wrong, thanks bro....I finally got a sharp image...ya...
ok I swear I ment to get that render up before I went to work....but here I am at work. Ill get a better look at the cockpit up after work star. Im off at 12 my time so 9 for you.
Wow sorry bout not getting these up when I said I would. Started a new job and Im trying to nurse my dog through parvo. Its been hectic. Heres some shots of the cockpit.
ok found a mesh error that couldnt be fised in a manner I like so did the fuesalage agian almost I dentical but without the error. In the process decided I wanted to try a canopy that opened, changed its look a bit and started putting in the landing gear bay doors. I made the area for the intake vents a little larger as well.
yeah the last one had one ridge where the engines start much more sloped than the other side. hopefully this thing will be done in the next week or two, cause Im itching to start on my next project for the story its going to be a set piece.
well its not much but it is progress. Got the air spoilers built. And the pic that is of
the cockpit interior, the wall at the front that goes up to the canopy, for some reason when I dow uvw unwrap i cant get that set of faces to dtach for the rest. anyone have any ideas on that?
Yeah, it means it's probably completely warped and mis-scaled somewhere in the uvw uwrap. you can always, with the uvw edit open, select the face in question in your viewport and have it immediately highlighted and selected in the uvw unwrap.
Yeah, it means it's probably completely warped and mis-scaled somewhere in the uvw uwrap. you can always, with the uvw edit open, select the face in question in your viewport and have it immediately highlighted and selected in the uvw unwrap.
yeah when I do that and try to moves those faces to position them better they pull other faces with them
:cool:ok I thought that I would post the UV map of the engines since they are done being modeled. Im pretty poud of how this turned out. Thank you so much meph once agian, every time i talk to you about this I see the effect on my skill level. Sefu! lol:D:thumb::flippy:
ok while working on the texture for the engines, which the paint layer is almost done no bump or spec yet, I decided to get a lesson from star so I could start figureing out the engine burn affect. Its not perfect but its a start.
Thank you so much meph once agian, every time i talk to you about this I see the effect on my skill level. Sefu! lol:D:thumb::flippy:
LOL, you're lucky I don't make you run 10.000 steps with two buckets of water, 10 times a day! Naa, anytime man, I know the frustration of being able to visualize something but getting swamped by a gazilion menu's and options, a dozen ways of accomplishing the same effect but groaning at the prospect of trying each and every last one of them, knowing that there are guys out there who found a good workflow. I'm glad to share the experience I've gathered so far.
The unwrap's looking really neat, a good canvas to paint on :thumb:
The blue you got there looks great as an inner core colour, but your exhausts should be a lot paler. Look at current day jet engines on afterburn; the predominant colours are leaning towards the pale/white side, with just some subtle colour depth. A good path to follow is to work with several effect over each other, for engine effects you got to thing in 'layers' of different coloured flames.... The ones for the Olympic and Heracles are actually 4 gizmo's and two lights, each with different effects.
ok there are no gizmos being used, cause Im just not sure how they would get used for this to be honest. but this is three directional spots. I think this looks so much better. Im assuming that your using the gizmos to fix what it is thats driving me nuts when you look at it from the rear. That whole where the is no light when it should bright white.
well I showed him by using Volume Light because, well thats the only way I know how to create a pretty good jet affect, if you know another way, let me know ok, thanks...
sorry for the lack of updates been busy with the new job. Should have some tonight!
Same here mate, same here...
@star_creations: try playing around with hemishperical gizmo's, stretched into a suiteable long cone/flame shape and add a 'fire effect' to your liking to it. I find that using this in combination with volume lights can produce quite nice effects.
Posts
When I create the texturing I want, then when I start to apply it, I select EDIT, to begin the mapping on the Model, but the texture is always blured, but never sharp and clean....hope that made sence.
Hmmm two things going on here, one: you're working in the wrong order two: a simple option you can change when editing unwraps.
*side note: first give your to be unwrapped part an uvw unwrap of the closest fitting gizmo (plane, sphere, box etc etc)*
For the second (shortest explanation ) When you have the edit unwrap screen open, on the little bottom left meny bar you can click on 'options' and there again on the bottom left you can see the pixel size of your work area. There the max pixel size on one side is 1024 pixels so you'll either have to guess or calculate the other value a bit .
For the first one: If you do the above first and the decided the size of your 'work area' it's best place all your unwrappings neatly apart you have for instance the top and bottom correcly scaled and next apart, some smaller parts or other sides too. This way you create a template that's easy to paint on in photoshop. Vizualize it like this, you take a 3D shape cut every part loose from the rest and 'unfold' them so that if you would would print it out on paper and cut it out you could glue it together and have your 3D spare. The best way to seperate the mess of polygons and verteces I find to first roughly take the mess apart is with select 'polygons' and 'select element', the unwrap with a first applied uwv map modifier. It's actlually is pretty 'smart' most of the time so that with 'select element' you can pick it apart in pretty large and correct chuncks, slowly piect it apart like this, then followed by puzzling the loose polygons to correct large chunks. Then scale everything to more or less to proportion of the model itself and pick 'tools/render uvw template' and set the colour for the seams also to pure white (standard fluo-green). For the pixel size, set your largest size to the amount of pixels you intend to paint on in Photoshop. Example: the left-upper flank section of the bow of the Olympic would have been roughly set to 1024x500 pixels in the edit unwrapper but exported as +-8000x4000 pixels. The 'guess ratio' button usually is acceptably accurate too. Click render and you get a white on black picture. Save it as jpg or png, import it in a new psd, invert it, take your time to manually and accurately erase all unecesarry verextes so you end up with a 'blueprint' of your shapes and modeled details like paneling etc etc. lock the layer, always keep it as your top layer and voila, you have the perfect template to start painting accurately and detailed. After you made and saved all your textures (diffuse, specular, bump, opacity etc.) go to max, make the material, assign the textures, assign the whole lot to your mesh, render and if necesarry, go back into the edit unwrap and finetune any errors...
I do know that this seems like and is a few hours work most of the time to do decently but trust me, it seriously pays off in the end. You really can go deep and detailed this way all in one go one one solid flow (for me usually a full afternoon a big texture of two maximum and/or perhaps a few smaller ones). And since the whole process is more or less in one go it allows mentally satisfying big chunk of work done with presentable results.
The better you get the hang of this the faster you'll work and the more complex shapes you'll take on, resulting in an even bigger payoff.
As an example; the bow section of the Olympic was first cut into: upper bow-left, lower bow-keel, front keel, front-keel-rim, bow 'wings', top bow section, bow aft section, and the landing pads in three pieces too. Several weeks later when I started mapping the engine pods, I took 1 big engine pod pod (one of 4 identical ones) as one gigantic piece, unwrapped it meticulously and textured that whole monstrosty in one go in a few hours while I spent days on the bow section!
Go for it guys!
BINGO!....thats was was wrong, thanks bro....I finally got a sharp image...ya...
Great work, can you give us a close-up shot of that cockpit.?
the cockpit interior, the wall at the front that goes up to the canopy, for some reason when I dow uvw unwrap i cant get that set of faces to dtach for the rest. anyone have any ideas on that?
yeah when I do that and try to moves those faces to position them better they pull other faces with them
DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TY as usual lol.
Engine UVWmap
LOL, you're lucky I don't make you run 10.000 steps with two buckets of water, 10 times a day! Naa, anytime man, I know the frustration of being able to visualize something but getting swamped by a gazilion menu's and options, a dozen ways of accomplishing the same effect but groaning at the prospect of trying each and every last one of them, knowing that there are guys out there who found a good workflow. I'm glad to share the experience I've gathered so far.
The unwrap's looking really neat, a good canvas to paint on :thumb:
The blue you got there looks great as an inner core colour, but your exhausts should be a lot paler. Look at current day jet engines on afterburn; the predominant colours are leaning towards the pale/white side, with just some subtle colour depth. A good path to follow is to work with several effect over each other, for engine effects you got to thing in 'layers' of different coloured flames.... The ones for the Olympic and Heracles are actually 4 gizmo's and two lights, each with different effects.
It is looking a lot beter indeed. Well I use the Gizmo's to put a 'fire effect' on but I guess everybody kinda has his own way to make jet flames.
Same here mate, same here...
@star_creations: try playing around with hemishperical gizmo's, stretched into a suiteable long cone/flame shape and add a 'fire effect' to your liking to it. I find that using this in combination with volume lights can produce quite nice effects.