How to texture a mesh object in Blender

[Charalyne Blackwood]

Make the cube, open the texture editor, make a base, upload your texture, cast 3 pearls into the Black River at midnight under a full moon and say "Kruglyd eothan blac to gebbedan hraw colion wiju bi goetsche" three times while a frog hums. Been trying to overcome this obstacle for a long, long time. Tutorials don't help. 3D Studio is starting to be worth the price.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

When you say "in Blender," what do you mean?

Do you want to paint colors directly onto the object? Or do you want to generate them with nodes?

Or do you just want to see your textures on the object?

Or do you not understand the UV unwrapping process (which defines how your textures are laid out for coloring)?

[arton Rotaru]

11 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

cast 3 pearls into the Black River at midnight under a full moon and say "Kruglyd eothan blac to gebbedan hraw colion wiju bi goetsche" three times while a frog hums.

Worked! 😇

[Charalyne Blackwood]

6 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

When you say "in Blender," what do you mean?

Do you want to paint colors directly onto the object? Or do you want to generate them with nodes?

Or do you just want to see your textures on the object?

Or do you not understand the UV unwrapping process (which defines how your textures are laid out for coloring)?

You don't know what Blender is? 

I made this in the Blender app. Did not like having to add the images to the faces of the item one at a time in world, as they don't align very well and the process to do so within the Blender app seems to be a closely guarded government secret, or only accessible by druidic sorcery. It isn't at all straight forward or intuitive. There's absolutely no intelligent reason to involve the use of nodes, other than to make the process needlessly difficult. Unwrapping and editing the UV map isn't so difficult, it's putting the damn thing back on that's miserable.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

You don't know what Blender is? 

I made this in the Blender app. Did not like having to add the images to the faces of the item one at a time in world, as they don't align very well and the process to do so within the Blender app seems to be a closely guarded government secret, or only accessible by druidic sorcery. It isn't at all straight forward or intuitive. There's absolutely no intelligent reason to involve the use of nodes, other than to make the process needlessly difficult. Unwrapping and editing the UV map isn't so difficult, it's putting the damn thing back on that's miserable.

I'm still having trouble understanding which specific part you're having trouble with. Each of the things I listed are things you can do in Blender, and I could give a detailed explanation with pictures on each one, but your question is too vague to bother putting in the effort to explain something that isn't relevant to you.

You mentioned having trouble with getting textures to align, but also said UV unwrapping isn't that difficult. These are contradictory statements, so I don't know what to explain. Your building looks fine.

So please, clarify. What are you trying to align, what are the steps you're taking and where does it go wrong? I'd be happy to help.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Tama Suki]

16 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

3D Studio is starting to be worth the price.

What magic there is in 3D studio that makes you avoid unwrapping a mesh to import it into SL?
I am genuinely curious.

Among other things, that of Blender is a gigantic community where you just have to lift a finger and before you have time to ask a question you are hit by a trillion of tutorials.

[Janet Voxel]

4 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

There's absolutely no intelligent reason to involve the use of nodes, other than to make the process needlessly difficult. Unwrapping and editing the UV map isn't so difficult, it's putting the damn thing back on that's miserable.

 

Nodes might actually help you if you need to scale a texture. 

It's like @Wulfie Reanimatorsaid though, if you're able to unwrap the object you're part way there.

The problem is you're not really explaining what the problem is when you're trying to texture the object. Are you baking the map after you texture it in blender? Are you trying to bake a map at all? It's hard to know how to help you if you don't explain, which is why she was asking you those questions.

 

[Charalyne Blackwood]

2 hours ago, Tama Suki said:

What magic there is in 3D studio that makes you avoid unwrapping a mesh to import it into SL?
I am genuinely curious.

Among other things, that of Blender is a gigantic community where you just have to lift a finger and before you have time to ask a question you are hit by a trillion of tutorials.

You assume I haven't been down that road. I'm not currently using 3D Studio. I've unwrapped the mesh in Blender already but the joining of the UV map to the item prior to upload into SL is obnoxiously complex.

[Charalyne Blackwood]

Just now, Janet Voxel said:

Nodes might actually help you if you need to scale a texture. 

It's like @Wulfie Reanimatorsaid though, if you're able to unwrap the object you're part way there.

The problem is you're not really explaining what the problem is when you're trying to texture the object. Are you baking the map after you texture it in blender? Are you trying to bake a map at all? It's hard to know how to help you if you don't explain, which is why she was asking you those questions.

 

I'm still trying to get the UV map to rejoin the object prior to uploading into SL, or at least be somehow connected so I'm not texturing it in world

[Janet Voxel]

Just now, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I'm still trying to get the UV map to rejoin the object prior to uploading into SL, or at least be somehow connected so I'm not texturing it in world

Once you unwrap it the data is already in the object. It's basically a way of telling where the textures should go on the object. Once you do that though, you would either have to texture it in blender or an app like photoshop or gimp. If you do it in Blender, you have to bake the map and export it, then put it in the diffuse texture slot in world.

 

[Charalyne Blackwood]

13 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Once you unwrap it the data is already in the object. It's basically a way of telling where the textures should go on the object. Once you do that though, you would either have to texture it in blender or an app like photoshop or gimp. If you do it in Blender, you have to bake the map and export it, then put it in the diffuse texture slot in world.

 

Thank you for the link. I can tell by the length of all 4 videos that my initial point is still valid. Process complexity: through the roof. I'll watch the series and report back the result...

 

 

Aaand this doesn't help for SL. I just need a tutorial that uses a cube as the base and is designed to send an object into SL. I can unwrap the UV map, and that's as far as I get. Clearly I'm too stupid for this, Thanks to all for the help but I haz teh dumz. Moderators, please delete this waste of a thread

Edited December 28, 2021 by Charalyne Blackwood

[Tama Suki]

55 minutes ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

Clearly I'm too stupid for this

I don't think you are stupid, nobody is stupid.

If I can afford I would like to give you some unsolicited advice.
3D isn't as easy as opening a can of tuna, you have to put in some effort if you really want to bring out something good.
I assure you that you don't have to sweat seven shirts to get more than decent results. Just take a few minutes a day and follow exactly what the tutorials tell you. After some time you will be master of the tools you need.
I started like this a few years ago and today Blender for me has become a kind of pencil that I use without even thinking about it too much. It's not extremely difficult, you just have to put some effort into it.
As for the node system implemented in Blender, I hate it too. But for example for the materials you can find an infinity of free libraries and you don't have to throw your soul on them.
Think about taking one step at a time.

[Tama Suki]

1 hour ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

Thank you for the link. I can tell by the length of all 4 videos that my initial point is still valid. Process complexity: through the roof. I'll watch the series and report back the result...

 

 

Aaand this doesn't help for SL. I just need a tutorial that uses a cube as the base and is designed to send an object into SL. I can unwrap the UV map, and that's as far as I get. Clearly I'm too stupid for this, Thanks to all for the help but I haz teh dumz. Moderators, please delete this waste of a thread

You can import a mesh into SL with all its texture in perfect condition in one step.
What you see in Blender works the same in SL.
Tomorrow morning I will look for everything you need and send you some tutorials and information here.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I'm still trying to get the UV map to rejoin the object prior to uploading into SL, or at least be somehow connected so I'm not texturing it in world

There's nothing like "rejoining the UV map prior to uploading into SL." It's impossible for the UV map to be separate from the object you're unwrapping.

There's definitely some fundamental misunderstanding you have about the process, like you're reading a book upside down.

But whatever, here's a five-step tutorial with a cube.

Step 1: The cube and the UV editor.

You can drag (or right-click) any corner of the 3D view to split it. Then click the top-left icon within that view to change the editor type to UV Editor. (Hotkey: Shift F10)

 

Step 2: Add a material slot from the Properties sidebar (on the right), in the Material Properties tab (checkered red ball icon), with the '+' icon.

This will be the "face" of an object in Second Life. One face can hold one texture.

You must also click the New button to create a new placeholder material for the slot. Just forget it even exists after this.

If you want your object to have multiple textures on it, you must create that many material slots with different placeholder materials. Otherwise you get very weird behavior in Second Life.

Step 3: In Edit Mode, assign a face (Blender term) of the object to this material slot.

By default, all faces will be assigned to the first material slot you create. If that's all you need, go to the next step.

Otherwise, use Face Select (Hotkey: 3), click the material slot you want to assign to, then click the Assign button.

Repeat this until you have assigned all faces to their correct materials.

Step 4: In Edit Mode, select a face and press U to unwrap it. We call these "UV islands," placed on the "UV grid."

This will maximize the size of the UV island within the UV grid. The side of the cube will perfectly fill the whole UV grid.

You should think of the UV grid as your texture. If you want your texture to perfectly fit on the object's surface, you should make sure the UV island fills the entire UV grid. Otherwise only a part of the texture (whatever size you make the UV island) will be used to cover the object.

Repeat this until you have unwrapped all faces. This is where you must make sure your textures align correctly.

Step 5. File > Export > Collada (.dae) and upload to Second Life.

There's nothing special to this step. Depending on your workflow, you may want to use options like "Selection Only" or change the global orientation, but none of these options are essential for basic, static objects.

Nothing needs to be done in the Upload Model window in Second Life.

It just works.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

 

8 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

Did not like having to add the images to the faces of the item one at a time in world, as they don't align very well and the process to do so within the Blender app seems to be a closely guarded government secret, or only accessible by druidic sorcery. It isn't at all straight forward or intuitive. There's absolutely no intelligent reason to involve the use of nodes, other than to make the process needlessly difficult. Unwrapping and editing the UV map isn't so difficult, it's putting the damn thing back on that's miserable.

I don't know of a way to upload textures automatically along with the mesh. Tama Suki claims to know how to do it. I'm waiting to see what that is; it would be awesome if it's actually possible.

You shouldn't have any problem aligning images, though. The UV map in Blender is the UV map in SL. The diffuse texture will align the same unless you've accidentally given it an offset or scale in SL. You do have to make sure your Blender object only has one UV map holding all the materials, not one for each. If you see something like this in your object data, some of your UV mapping will be lost on upload.

 

Quick question: how are you approaching texturing? Are you UV unwrapping onto a blank image and then painting, or do you have an existing texture image that you're aiming to use specific pieces of?

Edited December 29, 2021 by Quarrel Kukulcan

[Coffee Pancake]

I tend to do 2 UV maps.

One for mapping the object in blender onto a source texture (pretty much what blender uv tutorials cover as they assume rendering most of the time)

One with everything tightly packed for use in SL so I upload as few textures as possible.

Then bake everything onto the texture for SL.

 

[Tama Suki]

11 hours ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

I'm waiting to see what that is; it would be awesome if it's actually possible.

Once you baked the UV export the image, then make a new material to the mesh and apply the image you baked on it.

When you ask to Mrs. Collada to export the mesh use this options:   

 

In the SL viewer mark this option: 

Job done.

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Tama Suki

[Aquila Kytori]

This is an answer to and only one of many answers to the question : "In Blender, I still haven't figured out how to have a texture on a mesh surface before loading into SL." Jan 25 2021

On 12/28/2021 at 3:48 AM, Charalyne Blackwood said:

Been trying to overcome this obstacle for a long, long time.

 

How do I get Blender to show a texture on my mesh so that I can edit the UV's correctly before uploading to SL without messing about with Material Nodes in the Shader Editor ?

 

Starting with a default cube with 1 material applied to it :

(In the Materials Panel > Surface, please check that Use Nodes is selected. In Blender 3.0 it is selected by default but I am not sure for earlier versions.)

1:  In the Materials Properties panel > Surface > Base Color click on the little yellow dot to the right of the base color. This will open a menu with many options, Choose Image Texture :

 

2:  Below the Base Color is now a field asking you which Image Texture you would like to use. Click on Open then navigate to where the texture is stored on your hard drive, select it and then hit the Open Image button :

 

3:  In the 3D Editor switch the viewport shading to Material Preview :

 

The texture should now be visible on the surface of the cube.  You can now edit the UV's (re_unwrap if necessary) and correctly align the texture to the mesh before exporting and uploading to SL.

 

Notes :

If your mesh has more then one material then you will have to select each material in turn and redo steps 1 and 2 for each material.

In the above screen-shots the Shader Editor is open just so that you can see what is happening to the node setup at each step.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Aquila Kytori

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

10 hours ago, Tama Suki said:

When you ask to Mrs. Collada to export the mesh use this options:

Strange. That option doesn't exist in 2.92.

On the other hand, the Copy option seemed to be all that was necessary. Having the image files in the same directory as the .dae was apparently all that was needed all along.

[Tama Suki]

3 minutes ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

Strange. That option doesn't exist in 2.92.

On the other hand, the Copy option seemed to be all that was necessary. Having the image files in the same directory as the .dae was apparently all that was needed all along.

Friend!
The only thing we will have to do is unite to amplify the connection between Blender and Second Life.

[StarlanderGoods]

I use blender for UV unwrapping, I export what Im doing to an .OBJ file using UDIM textures, and then do the texturing itself on MARI, where I have my materials library.

Then I un-UDIM the textures, because Blender doesnt like baking them, and use the nodes to import the custom textures with all the material stuff, like metallic, AO, normals, etc.

And finally, hit the BAKE button, and stare at the screen for 5 to 30 minutes, and then I do it again because the textures look too dark in SL, eventhough they looked great in Blender.