Do you know UV mapping? Win a Slide Effect Licence

Hi there,

here is the deal: I just plainly suck at 3D modeling. In Slide Effect Presentation Creator I use .x meshes for each letters of the alphabet. I am not able to set correctly the UV mapping of these meshes, actually each face use the full texture (uv from 0:0 to 1:1)... and if, for instance, I want to use a wood texture, the result is not very appealing.

If somebody is able to convert these meshes to use a correct UV mapping (instead of each faces use all the texture, change the UV to use a cube projection on the whole letter), I will offer a free licence for my software Slide Effect Presentation Creator ($49).

If you want to help, do the following:
- Download the trial version of Slide Effect: http://www.slide-effect.com/trial/SlideEffectTrial.exe
- Install it.
- In C:\Program Files\Slide Effect Trial\data\3DFonts\Standard you will find all the .x meshes to convert (52 objects).
- Do your 3D Black magic to convert UV mapping.
- Put the result in a zip file
- Send it to me at alain@...

/!\ Please do not change the normals of these objects, It takes time for me to have sharp edges on these letter (you know I'm a 3D modelling newbie).

Thanks for any help.

Have a nice day.

Unwrapping 52 models is no small task no matter how easy it is. For proper UV mapping you'll need the front and back of the letter unwrapped and then the surfaces making up the letter "depth". Say 5 minutes per model is still well over 4 hours work and import/export, packaging it all up nicely for your use (exporting the layout as an image for guide use in Photoshop etc) I'd say 10 minutes a model.

UV mapping is not difficult, once you know how, especially if it's just "letters" rather than some organic model such as human or animal (which can be difficult and requires some artistic skill). What package capable of UV mapping do you have access to / knowledge of?

I could make you a quick tutorial on how to do it in Blender and I'm sure someone else could give you directions if you use another package to get you started. "Teach a man to fish... etc."

HTH

oh.

I didn't think it was so difficult and time consuming... in my mind, it was just a matter of loading each letters in your favorite 3D package, then click an option to do some cube projection to uv mapping and save it. I am a total newbie in 3D modelling.

I did these letters in Blender by the way, so if you can point me to a tutorial I would appreciate.

thanks anyway for this detailled answer.

Hi,

It's not difficult, but if you want it done properly, 5 minutes a letter sounds about right.

"One click" unwrapping such as Cube projection will still have overlapping faces (faces sharing the texture at some points) which is what I thought you wanted to avoid. A lightmap unwrap would give no overlapping faces but would have a problem with stretching etc and would give problems if you wanted to take the layout into an image editing program to make a nice texture as the unwrap wouldn't be laid out in a common sense manner.

If the above is what you want all you need to do is go into "edit mode" (Tab key) select all faces (A key) then press the U key (for Unwrap) and select either "Cube Projection" or "Light Map Projection". You can see the UV unwrap in the UV editor window. Export the model and the UV co-ords will be included.

For best results each letter would have a UV map consisting of 3 islands. The front face, the back face and the faces forming the letter depth. This is done by marking seams. Select all the edges forming the front face of the letter then "Ctrl E" and select "Mark Seam". Selecting "U" and Unwrap from the menu you'll see in the UV window the front face is detached from the rest of the layout... repeat again for the back face and then mark 1 edge of the letter depth faces.

If you want me to write a small tutorial with images, e-mail me a single letter.x file and I'll create one for you (Blender's UV mapping changed recently so most tutorials are out of date at the moment). That way you'll know how to unwrap a model and saved yourself a licence.