Dree Eames

Some things you might try: Select the mesh that isn't contributing to the ao and: Check normals to be sure they aren't facing the wrong direction CTL A - apply location, rotation, scale If the "offender" has parts that are mirrored ,copied or arrayed apply the modifier . Shift CTL A and "make duplicates real" in the event the duplication is a linked duplicate. Note I haven't tested any of these, but they are easy enough to try and one of these might do the trick.

I would also like to mention that while I absolutely agree it is ideal to make the UV's prior to mirroring or creating an array, I can imagine situations where one might make the UVs before copying, but yet later find that the original UVs are not optimum and one might then choose to rework them at some later point. So if the scene is complex and there are many and the parts are repositioned after mirroring the only reasonable option would be to copy the UVS.

Very nice plane! Pam Galli kindly directed me to this thread. I have only a moment here to glance at the issue and need tonight to to absorb this thread where I'll respond tonight in more detail, but off the top of my head when you use the UV transfer on an item created by the mirror modifier you are not actually transfering from one identical item to the other. It's mirrored. So the result is unconnected UV faces. It took me ages for figure out why I sometimes had this issue and otherwise not. For example if you make copies via the array modifier you shouldn't run into this problem. I recall I figured out a quick fix for this so you can correctly transfer the uvs to mirrored objects. The procedure is something like mirroring the mirrored part, THEN copy the UV and then flip it back and reset the normals...something like that, but I have to dig out my notes as I haven't been actively creating mesh this summer. ************** A few hours later*********** Yayy! I found the video I made to remind myself about this issue. Here's an example I just whipped up. I made a quick coffee cup and mirrored it on the x and again on the y. I then selected each copy and made them seperate objects (in this case the easiest way is to select each and press P>separate by parts which will seperate everything selected into it's own object in one go and since each copy s a single mesh it's a quick way to do this.) Then I UVd the "master" and then selected each copied object with the master selected last. I pressed Ctrl L and transferred UVs. Note that the best way to then visualize the problem with copying UVs on mirrored objects is to create an AO texture from the "master" and then assign this texture to all the mirror copied meshes: The "Master copy" is on the left in the back. Note that the copy on the x axis and on y axis do not look right. This demonstrates that that although the UV's appear to be correct, the faces are disconnnected and screwed up. What is interesting is that the copy diagonally opposed to the "Master" copied correctly. That's because it's a copy of a copy - mirrored twice - so it's straightened out. The Fix? Seperate the mirrored meshes into seperate objects and then prior to copying the UVs, flip the normals for the one's that would "break" (not the diagonal one because it "self-corrects"). After flipping the UVs, proceed with copying the UVs. Then re-flip the normals back on the copies that needed this correction. Tadaa!:

Here's a helpful Blender Cookie tutorial on Youtube re: setting up Node Groups for your "library" of node set ups for append to future files. It's a very nice workflow because with node groups you are able to can rename the input "sockets" and make it possible to recall what the sockets are controlling and you can "isolate" the specific inputs that you would like to access and change such as textures or colors, etc.

Thanks very much for the correction Drongle. I was trying to be helpful and I may have made things clear as mud. I completely blanked on the option to overlap UVs in the 0,1 UV grid since I rarely need that kind of resolution. It however a very useful option. In Blender at least, you can assign each island to a distinctly seperate texture to bake to (I'm wondering if that's pretty universal in all UV packages), so its possible at bake each islands high resolution AO texture for compositing without interference from the overlapping islands, (also assuming each overlaping island is also set up as a distinct material group so it's a distinct texture in SL.) So I stand corrected. You can absolutely capture the resulting AO at a higher resolution then you would with a texture atlas type of UV set up where every thing is shrunk down so nothing overlaps. I'm blanking here on whether in SL in the materials settings the bump and spec maps can be set individually for each texture/material group on a mesh or if a single "atlas" type map is required for the entire mesh. Edited because I'm such a lame editor.

I hope is clear that you can only upload a single UV map per mesh into SL. Second LIfe does not support multiple UV maps. Assuming you want to bake the ao textures, bake a normal map, specular map etc. for use in compositing within PS or gimp, you need to constrain your UVs within the 0,1 UV tile. And If you feel the lower resolution which would result from all these large parts sharing a single UV map is unacceptable you will need to break these items off as seperate objects and upload them that way as a linked group. As seperate objects, again, each of these individual mesh can have a single UV map. Each mesh can be assigned up to 8 materials and each material group represents a seperate texturable (actual word?) areas on your mesh - still just one UV map per mesh.

Some other options: Select the Ngon and then insert (I). Scale the inner ngon in a bit to create a border of faces and then remove the ngon. Then select the boundry edge and press CTL F > Grid Fill. (Note inserting is optional but it helps with shading. Now with the ability to edit normals this might be no longer necessary) Another option is to just select the Ngon and press CTL T which will give you a trangulated result that has less of those troublesome thin elongated triangles. Press F6 (or look in the left side transform palette) and toggle between the Polygon (means ngon) method of "Beauty" or "Clip" to get the arrangement you prefer.

I think in this instance, where there are 5 star poles in the inner region the option to follow active quads won't work. I could be wrong. Another suggestion is to select the opposing boundry edges and "pin" them (shortcut p). Then check live unwrap and then boundry edges and straighten which you can do by scaling to zero along the perpendicular axis of each selected edge edge in either the x or y direction. The edges should straighten and the rest of the UV should conform. It can be tricky to do and without having the actual geometry to test this with, I can't guarentee that it will work in this case. Worth a try. Edited to add: the "live unwrap" option is in the UV edit window under the menu "UVs". Edited for clarity

Drongle, This looks like a terrific info, thanks. I did note you opened with: "Blender 2.5 is out."....did you mean Blender 2.75?

It's slightly interesting to filter the items list by "data block" and look at what's listed for images: If there are images in the list, but none in the UV view, each will show 1 user. You can check "fake user" and make User jump to "2" and if you shift click on "X" as described before over in the UV window, the user number on this filtered list drops to zero. Unfortunately I cannot seem to find a way to use this list to actually set this parameter to zero or to simply delete/remove the texture.

I forgot to also mention that to correct the problem: Select all the faces and press CTL N to flip them to the outside. If you are having difficulty with some faces not flipping to the exterior, then you may have "non-manifold" geometry which can happen with extruding, where a face is extruded inside your mesh (non manifold geoemetry is three or more faces that connect to one edge). You can quickly uncover such hidden geometry in edge or vertice selection mode with SHIFT CTL ALT M and then delete the offending faces. Be aware that open boundry geometry will also be highlighted when you use this shortcut (I'm not sure why), so you need to take care that you don't accidently delete that boundry geometry.

It looks to me like your normals are flipped. If you are using blender there is an option to show polygons as doubles sided. I always turn this feature off so I can see more clearly if I've accidently flipped the normals. In the "N" Transform pallette, in the Shading sub-palette, check off "back faced culling"

If I'm understanding the Blender manual correctly, it's difficult for Blender to actually determine that an image is unlinked and then automatically dump it when you save the file (like it does with unused materials that haven't been tagged with "F"/fake user.) Apparently "Image Views" are counted as users. I'm mystified by what "image views" might be and I'd appreciate it if someone could explain further. Quoting directly from the manual: Removing Datablocks As covered in Users (Garbage Collection), data-blocks are typically removed when they’re no longer used. There are some exceptions to this however. Scenes, text, can be removed directly. Other data-blocks such as groups and actions can be Unlinked from the Outliner context menu. Tip Some data (images especially) is hard to keep track of, especially since image views are counted as users. For data-blocks that can be unlinked - hold Shift while pressing on the X button, This force-clears the user-count, so the data-block will be removed on reload.

I agree. Selecting each unused texture in turn in the UV window then holding shift while clicking the X to remove them followed by saving and reopening the Blend file has always been the way to remove unwanted unused textures. I find the process is much quicker when I then save the file with CTL S and then immediately click "Revert" from the file menu (note an little "double check menu" appears which is is easy to miss when you click revert) and Blender quickly replaces the screen with the revised version. This takes just a second and *poof* those unwanted textures are gone.

Your creative use of mixed fonts, text size, colors, "all caps", italics and boldface has convinced me you are passionate about this topic. Perhaps every unhappy, unappreciated and underpaid ("U.U.U.") worker in SL could protest by shutting off their computer and finding a well paid job in RL. (file that under: "who's stopping them?") Or, alternatively, they might opt to spend more with their neglected cat. Personally, the vast number of participants in SL who have an interest in such an activity would eagerly D.J. for free just for the convenience of performing the job at home sitting in their underwear in front of their computer. RL D.J.s have transportation issues and wardrobe considerations to concern themselves with. I suggest you watch this D.J. related video as recompense: