How to Save and Open a UV Map...

[Hollyee]

Hi there,

I just bought a mesh kit to practice with. I only have the option to save the uv map as a tga or png file to my hard drive but can't open it with Blender. I just downloaded Blender to try it out as well. How do I save it and/or open it? I guess the texture file will be done the same way? I am not even sure how to texture things.

Any small help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[Rolig Loon]

You'll want to open the UV map with your graphics program (Photoshop, GIMP, ....) and use it as a guide for drawing the texture that will be applied to your model.  The UV map is exactly what it says: a 2D map of the unwrapped topology of the 3D model, analogous to a map of Europe or Africa that corresponds to the same area on a globe of the world.  When you create a texture that conforms to the UV map, you can apply it in world to your uploaded mesh model the same way that you apply a texture to any other object.

[Aquila Kytori]

hi ,

You would need a file type ending with    .dae  ,   .obj  , .Blend etc to open the actual mesh model in Blender.

If you only have a .png or .tga then that is the UV map that is used as a guide for texturing .

Open it in Gimp or Photoshop and on a SEPARATE  layer / layers do the texturing .

When finished  hide the layer containing the original UV map , ( the one with all the lines on it ) and save as a .png and upload to SL .

[Charles Hera]

Here is a tutorial that might help:

 

http://nakedmesh.blogspot.com/p/mesh-faqs.html

 

Unless you plan on making your own mesh from scratch, you will not need Blender or another program to customize your the mesh in your "mesh kit".   You WILL need a photo editing program.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

In addition to the other answers:

 

- You can 'export' your UV map into an image file (png, jpg, tga) from within blender. You do this in the Imge/UV view panel.
  (but might need to ensure that all faces are selected to show them on the UV canvas)
- "...but can't open it with Blender"
  You can not 'open' a png or imagefile in blender in the traditional way as you would in an image editor.
  Imagefiles are assigned as Textures / Maps via the Material Properties. And can be altered or even edited from there in.
  To do so you need a bit of knowledge about blender.

  So best is as the others already suggested, to simply open it in an image editor and just paint on top of it, save it.
  Make sure to save it under the exact same name and file location if you want to look at your result in blender. You
  need to click the refresh button on the assigned image in the matrial properties to refresh the view with your newly
  painted / changed texture. If you dont know how to do that, save your blend file and reopen it. 

  PS: to see textures on the objects in blender you have to make sure to switch the viewport shading to textured.

- It should be also mentioned, that the model you have gotten might have several materials, and thus several UVs. 
  Which you then would need to acess by selecting the corresponding material and its assigned faces.

- To figure out what to draw 'where' on the texture to paint for a speciffic part of the model is 'easier' when there is,  like in
  aquila's example, already a painted or baked image on it, this way you can 'identify' areas easily and just overpaint
  them in any image editor of your choice, and then upload them to SL and assigne them to the mesh.

- If it's just the exported UV Lines / Grid, you will have to 'inspect closely the shaping of the islands' to figure out where
  on the model they could be located.
  (unless you know how to use the synched selection in Blenders UV / and 3D viewport, with
  that one you can easly figure which vertices belong to where)

- The rest is trial and error, and a lot uploading to the 'testgrid' (which is advised instead of doing all these test uploads
  on the maingrid -  in order to save many linden dollars) until your texture will be right.

Here is a simple example of assigning a texture:

and a quick guide on UV mapping 
http://www.blendernation.com/2012/06/13/uv-mapping-in-3-minutes/


Cheers!

 

[Aquila Kytori]

      It may help to find out which parts of the mesh have been mapped to which part of the UV map if you first texture the mesh in SL with a UV Test Grid.  You will find plenty on Google if you search for "UV test grid" .