1 Tutorials LightWave 3D UV Texturing with a Focus on Game Models for Serious Sam Qua Jan 26, 2011 4:17 am
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How To: |
Switch to point mode by clicking "points" in the bottom left or pressing "space" until it is highlighted. Click on the point in the "UV Texture" view you want to modify, and choose the "Move" tool "t" under the "Modify" tab. Drag the point, using the perspective view to judge the effects on the image map to find the proper position. Press "space" to drop the move tool, then Left Click on the select point again to deselect it. Select the next point you wish to modify and repeat the process. |
as mentioned above, we will focus on smoothing
the UV coordinates for just the front and back
of the torso and not make a consistent connection
with the grid of the leg section. The front torso
only needs a little change to the bottom right
point. The back needs a little more work to straighten
out its lines, then move all the points to better
line up with the front torso.
How To: |
Follow the same guidelines as you did in step 20, "inside leg", for point adjustments to fix the torso. |
then other areas. We have broken the shoe into
2 parts. The main part is the outside area, the
section containing the laces and the entire area
that connects the shoe to the sole. The other
part of the foot is only the inside ankle. In
some cases, it may be easier or more desirable
to separate these parts further, especially the
top of the shoe where the laces are, but for this
instance we will be served fine with this simple
distribution of UV coordinates.
Adjust the points to smooth the grid around the
outside shoe surface. Pay special attention to
getting a good transition on the top laces area.
Now adjust the inside shoe surface to match the
relative grid size of the outside shoe. Once the
grid wraps consistently around both parts, make
any final tweaks to the coordinates. As with the
inside leg, the inside shoe surface is not going
to be a prominent visible area of the character
so perfection is not necessary.
How To: |
Follow the same guidelines as you did in step 20, "inside leg", for point adjustments to fix the shoe. |
Approach
1: Finishing the UV Map
24. Select all polygons using the "Lasso"
tool. As when we deleted half this model before,
deselect the 2 polygons that stretch across both
halves of the model so they will not be mirrored.
Now "mirror" the object. Now you have your whole
object and the entire thing is image-mapped. Save
this object.
How To: |
Switch to Polygon mode by clicking "polygons" in the bottom left or pressing "space" until it is highlighted. Use the right mouse button to "Lasso" select all the polygons in the object. In the "top" or "bottom" view, you will see the two polygons that crossover both halves of the model. Left Click to deselect these 2 polygons. To mirror the selected polygons, activate the "Mirror" tool "V" under the "Multiply" tab. Move the mouse to the "0,0" point in the "Front" or "Back" view, then press the left mouse button and drag down. You will see the object mirrored in the view port. Release the mouse button to finish. |
the Reduce section of the left menu under the
"Construct" tab. You now have a UV mapped object
ready to use.
How To: |
Press "m", then press "OK" in the "Merge Points" dialog box. |
Approach
1: End Results
Approach
2: Getting Started
1. This approach will focus on more extensive
control over UV placement and allow for fine detail
manipulation. For this path, we will use an existing
image map (from CroTeam's game Serious Sam) and
we will mold our UV map to work with this image
map.
1. Load the "player2.lwo" object. Now with
all the symmetrical polygons deleted, select all
points and "unweld" them.
How To: |
Use the Lasso tool again by holding the right mouse button and drag the lasso around the entire object. Now select the "Detail" tab in the top bar and press "unweld" located in the "points" subsection of the left bar. |
to back up your work so far.
Approach
2: Flattening the Model
3. We are now going to create a morph
map so we can use "EndoMorph's" to morph between
the current version and the flat version of the
object we are about to make. Once we have a flat
version of the object, we will UV map, then morph
the object back to its original 3 dimensional
form. Create a new "Morph Map" and name it "Flat".
Aristo Menis' tutorial first introduced me to
the idea of using morph maps to do this and he
deserves the credit for it. If it weren't for
Menis, I'd still be doing this the old "Saturn's
Ring Morph" way, a more time consuming process
of morphing separate objects in layout.
How To: |
At the bottom right of the screen you will see the map controls: W T M (none). Press the "M" button and from the pop-up menu select "new". In the "EndoMorph" dialog box name the new map "Flat" and set the type as "Relative". This tutorial will not work unless the type is "Relative". |
4. We are now going to position the points
for this morph. Since all the points are unwelded
we will select polygon groups by surface and position
them on the Z-axis so we can create a planar UV
map on the Z-axis. To select surfaces by name,
use the statistics panel. Do not directly select
individual points or polygons. Since the object
is unwelded, it is very easy to mess up the object
and have to revert back to the saved version.
Select the front surface for the leg and move
it to the right of the model.
How To: |
Press "w" or select statistics from the left main menu: Modeler>Windows>Statistics. Switch to Polygon mode by clicking "polygon" in the bottom left or pressing "space" until it is highlighted. In the "surf" line, press the down arrow and choose the surface you wish to select. Now press the "+" button to the left of the "surf" line. The "-" button will deselect all polygons that have the selected surface. To move the object, press "t" or in the top menu select "Modify" then "Move" in the left menu. Now drag the polygons to the side in the front view. Holding the CTRL key will restrict movement to one access. |
and any other front facing surfaces.
6. For the side and back facing surfaces,
we will rotate then so they face forward, then
move them into position alongside the front surfaces.
How To: |
Deselect any currently selected surface by clicking in a blank area in the left menu or pressing the "-" button in the statistics panel. Choose the side or back surface you want to work on next and select it in the statistics panel as you did before. Now position the mouse in the top view and press "r" to rotate the surfaces polygons 45 degrees on the Y axis. Depending on your center of rotation, the polygons might move out of your view. If this happens, just zoom out using the "magnify" tool located at the top right of your view window. Depending on which surface you chose, you might need to press the "r" button 2 or 3 times to get the polygons facing the desired direction. If you go too far, just keep pressing "r" and you'll get back to where you started. Once orientated correctly, use the move tool as before to position the surface's polygons with the other surfaces you've organized. |
8. Now load your image into the background
of the bottom right view, or your preferred quadrant.
Set the image resolution to 1024 so you can see
the details more clearly. I sized mine up to 2
feet so it was little closer in scale with my
current layout of pieces.
How To: |
Press "d" to open the "Display Options" panel. Select "BackDrop" and press the "BR" button. |
out in the front view. Now switch back to the
base Morph map.
Here is your object whole. If you switch back
to the "flat" morph map, you will see that Modeler
has retained all the changes we have made.
How To: |
At the bottom right of the screen, you will see the map controls: W T M (none). Press the "M" button and from the pop-up menu select "Base". To change back to the flattened version, go back to the same pop-up menu and choose "Flat". |
10. Now is a good
time to save your work.
Approach
2: Creating the UV Map
11. Now size down the polygons in the
bottom right view to fit over the image map. Once
the basic size is more relational, move the parts
over the area of the map that will be mapped onto
them. This does not need to be perfect, as detail
adjustments will be made directly to the UV Map.
How To: |
Use the "Size" function "H" under the "Modify" tab to size the polygons down. Then using the select by surface method we used earlier, using the surface list in the statistics panel, use the "Move" function "t" under the "Modify panel" to move the polygons into position |
type "Planar" on the "Z" axis. Name this image
map "player"
How To: |
At the bottom right of the screen, you will see the map controls: W T M (none). Press the "T" button and from the pop-up menu select "new". In the "Create UV Texture Map" dialog box, name the new map "player". Set the Map Type to "planar", the Axis to "Z" and Settings to "Automatic". Press "ok". |
right view, switch to "UV Texture". Now you can
see the UV Map.
Switch
to point selection mode and use the move tool
to better position the UV coordinates over your
image map. Do not manipulate individual polygons
in this step, if you do need to make edits, select
the entire surface. Generally it is best to only
manipulate points at this phase.
How To: |
In the Top left of the bottom view, use the pop-up menu to switch from the current view to "UV Texture" The image map should still be in the background from before, if not, repeat step 8. Switch to point mode by clicking "points" in the bottom left or pressing "space" until it is highlighted. Select points using the Left Mouse button with Shift or CTRL keys or use the "Lasso" by holding down the right mouse button. Now use the "move" tool "t" under the "Modify" tab. Deselect points by Left Clicking on them or deselect all by Left Clicking in an empty area of the left menu. |
surfaces and add the image map to the color channel
of the surfaces.
How To: |
Open the Surface panel "CTRL F3" in the left menu. Select all the surfaces for your object using the Left mouse button and CTRL or shift keys. Press the [T] button to the right of the color channel. In the texture menu set the type to "Images Map". Then set the Projection to "UV", the UVMap to "player" and the Image to the image map you are using. Press "Use Texture" |
15. Switch back to the "base" morph map
and see your progress. If any part of the image
mapping of the "base" version looks stretched
or mis-aligned, go back to step 13 and continue
tweaking the UV Map.
How To: |
At the bottom right of the screen, you will see the map controls: W T M (none). Press the "M" button and from the pop-up menu select "Base". To change back to the flattened version, go back to the same pop-up menu and choose "Flat". |
Approach
2: Finishing the UV Map
16.
Change to the "base" morph map if you had changed
back to "Flat", then select all polygons using
the "Lasso" tool. As when we deleted half this
model before, deselect the 2 polygons that stretch
across both halves of the model so they will not
be mirrored. Now "Mirror" the object. Now you
have your whole object and the entire thing is
image-mapped. Save this object.
How To: |
Switch to Polygon mode by clicking "polygons" in the bottom left or pressing "space" until it is highlighted. Use the right mouse button to "Lasso" select all the polygons in the object. In the "top" or "bottom" view, you will see the two polygons that crossover both halves of the model. Left Click to deselect these 2 polygons. To mirror the selected polygons, activate the "Mirror" tool "V" under the "Multiply" tab. Move the mouse to the "0,0" point in the "Front" or "Back" view, then press the left mouse button and drag down. You will see the object mirrored in the view port. Release the mouse button to finish. |
just saved. Now use "Save Transformed Object".
Save this under a different name and close Layout.
How To: |
Load the object by selecting "Add>Object>Load Object" from the left menu. Then select "Save Transformed Object" from the "File>Save>Save Transformed Object" in the left menu. |
Merge Points "m", in the Reduce section of the
left menu under the "Construct" tab. You now have
a UV mapped object ready to use.
How To: |
Press "m", then press "OK" in the merge points dialog box. |
Approach
2: End Results
Resource
Files
Red Grid
Texture Map from tutorial in TARGA format
Start Model
Samantha model for Tutorial
Finished
Model
Textured Samantha model (Download Red Grid image
separately)
Download
All Source Files Here]