How do you ... texture mesh joined objects so they have the same texture on one face?

[Katherine Heartsong]

I'm rebuilding a platform that will be the street base for a new thing I'm working on. Because there is a basement below street level (and a subway entrance) I've had to take a single 32x64 "platform" and cut that up into nine blocks to fit around the "underground" spaces while still maintaining a solid single top surface. They are radically different XY sizes so I can't seem to get one texture sized right to look like it's a coherent single surface.

I thought if I joined these, I could then apply one texture to the top nine but that does not work.

How do I apply a single texture to the top face on this compounded shape?

Edited February 27 by Katherine Heartsong

[Wulfie Reanimator]

With UV mapping.

If I'm imagining the shape correctly, you can select all of the pieces, look at them from above, and unwrap with "project from view." This should give you a UV layout with each surface aligned to different parts of a texture.

[Katherine Heartsong]

3 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

With UV mapping.

If I'm imagining the shape correctly, you can select all of the pieces, look at them from above, and unwrap with "project from view." This should give you a UV layout with each surface aligned to different parts of a texture.

Is this in SL?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

4 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Is this in SL?

OH! Sorry, my head was in Blender.

The same principle works in SL when editing texture-repeats on prims, it's just a more manual process.

If you want a single texture to cover a 3x3 grid of prims, you need to set the texture repeats to 1/3rd on each prim, and then offset the texture accordingly. This gets trickier with irregular shapes, but you can at least get the repeats correct by typing some math into the editor field. (The viewer supports math equations in them.)

For example, if your platform is 32m wide and you have 8m piece, you can get the correct repeats for that with 8/32. Same for the other axis and pieces.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

OH! Sorry, my head was in Blender.

You're reminding me of the Eve 6 song, "Inside Out":

Wanna put my tender heart in a blender
Watch it spin 'round to a beautiful oblivion

[Katherine Heartsong]

It's weird there is no way to create a 32x64x1 platform, then (for example) a 4x4x5 "cutting" block that you can position through the larger platform, and simple combine the two removing the 4x4 space to create a straight edged hole in the platform.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

8 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

It's weird there is no way to create a 32x64x1 platform, then (for example) a 4x4x5 "cutting" block that you can position through the larger platform, and simple combine the two removing the 4x4 space to create a straight edged hole in the platform.

That would be pretty useful. It would essentially create a custom mesh asset and be a step toward in-world mesh editing.

Prims as they are now have been designed to be very simple and cheap to transport over the network. Internally they're just a collection of parameters and the thing we actually see is created on-the-fly by each of our own viewers.

[Katherine Heartsong]

All good and thanks! I've changed my mind a bit and have changed out a building (the one with the cellar basement) and scrapped the subway, so can simply use a single 32x64 prim at this point.

Edited February 27 by Katherine Heartsong
spelling, like always

[PheebyKatz]

7 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

All good and thanks! I've changed my mind a bit and have changed out a building (the one with the cellar basement) and scrapped the subway, so can simply use a single 32x64 prim at this point.

I know you already found a way around the problem, but there is a feature in the Edit window (not inworld right now so I can't find it and screencap it) that allows you to set prims to align textures automatically to match the ones around them. It auto-scales/rotates textures so they match up at the edges and everything.

I had trouble finding it without help at first, but it's proven invaluable on a couple of occasions.

When I find it I'll post more info, logging in (again) now to do so. It's a really useful thingy.

[PheebyKatz]

Here you go. In case anyone needs it. I don't know if all viewers have this, but Firestorm does, at least.

Select all faces with the texture, choose Planar as the mapping option, and then tick the checkbox, "Align planar faces".

The texture on the faces will then align at the same scale and rotation, etc. as the first face selected. Or was it the last face selected?

I'm not logging back in just to find out, lol. Anyway, this is a useful thingy.

I deliberately rotated, misaligned, etc., the texture on the leftmost of the three faces, prior to selecting the faces and ticking the box. They automatically matched. It's easy.

Edited February 27 by PheebyKatz

[Katherine Heartsong]

Noted and bookmarked in case I do need this in the future! Thanks @PheebyKatz!!

[PheebyKatz]

4 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Noted and bookmarked in case I do need this in the future! Thanks @PheebyKatz!!

You are very welcome. I was happy when someone showed it to me, so I've always remembered it's there.