Blender cycles and UV maps

[Spinell]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm working on a dress that had some strips of fabric in which I wanted to but a specifc design in:

I used to have everything in one single mesh object, with one unified UV map unwrapped, but I thought it best to seperate these parts, so here's how it looks:

The pattern I want to inprint is a straight long strip with 512X2048 measurements. I thought this should be straight forward, but I can't seem to get the right mapping or texture coordinates to apply this image neatly.

 

 

[Chic Aeon]

So the good news is that you CAN do what you want to do. There is really no need to break off your long ties from the rest of the UV map.

 

In simplistic terms (and this is SO not simple) you need to make a separate UV map for the ties and then connect that UV map (TiesUV) to the main UV map  -- making your adjustment to the texture input on the TiesUV map.

 

I do this all the time now BUUUUUUUUUUUT it took me forever to wrap my head around it all. Happily someone made a video that will give you a start on the process. I suggest you go through that tutorial a few times (LOL) before tacking your actual model. *wink*. Once you learn it, it all makes sense -- and perhaps it was just me   

 

Adding a couple of recent screenshots which will hopefully help some also.

 





 

Going to look for that video URL. 

 

 

ALSO, I have to say that I am a bit worried about the density of your mesh. We have seen a lot of dresses like that come through this forum with folks not being able to upload because of the density. So I suggest -- if you haven't -- uploading it before you get tooooo far along. You may need to lose some of thos edge loops .

 

Good luck. This is a WONDERFUL skill to master.

[Drongle McMahon]

Adding to Chic's instructions for baking the separately applied texture into a composite single UV map, which is not so simple, you may also need the easier step of making a rectangular pattern fit onyo your tiew shapes. Here I will asuume that you want the same pattern on all of the ties. This would be easier if you had a more regular geometry, but it looks as if you have some peculiar curvy geometry in the ties. So we can't just make everything straight. It usually saves a lot of time if you do your UV mapping before duplicating features like these ties. However, that's too late now. So here is roughly how I would do it starting from where you are.

1. Select you ties (as you have shown) and make a new image in the UV editor at 512x1024. Move the ties in the UV editor all as exactly on top of each other as possible. Center them, then stretch them to fill the whole UV area. That should look like the left picture panel, except that you have a more irregular vertex geometry.

2. Now select just the topmost row of vertices, for all the ties [yellow box 1] and switch on proportional editing withg linear more [yellow box 2]. Type SX and stretch (mouse) till the edges of the ties fit the edges of the image. You will probably have to do this several times with different ranges, adjusted with the mouse wheel, to get the edges to fit all the way down. If you need very fine fitting, and they are not very equal, you might even have to select the ties separately while you do this. You can switch on constraint of UVs to image area to make sure you don't stretch anything outside the image.

3. Now you can load the texture image into the UV editor.

4. The pattern should now fit the ties, suitably squeezed to fit at the top. This is shown using Texture Solid display mode in the 3D view.



These adjustments to the UV map should be the same in cycles. It only differs in how you use the UV map to apply the texture.

[Chic Aeon]

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Drongle McMahon wrote:

Adding to Chic's instructions for baking the separately applied texture into a composite single UV map, which is not so simple

 

 Had to smile at that.

Your steps are absolutely essential as part of the process. Since the method includes actually "mapping twice" -- once for placement on the main UV and once to get what you WANT in that spot just as you want it. So what one would do to get the ties mapped to shape  (or oftentimes to find the prettiest part of a complex pattern and use THAT as your texture fill -- ignoring the not so pretty parts) certainly has to happen. 

 

I was happy to see your "not so simple" statement. It really did take me FOR-E-VER to get this. So many steps and so very many things that can go wrong while you are learning.  STILL, one of the best things for workflow around in Cycles methinks .