Hi there Well i am makeing a dress for koshini and am almost to the point to where i need to build for texture mapping the uv's and not that where are so many new wasy to do it i need help i dont want a basic front back style uv i wast areas so that there can be more detail in the textures. i was hoping on finding a way to make the templave/uv's like the M3/V3 templates but i cant find anything anywhere to show you how. i have max 6 and it now has uv mapping tools i also have UVMapper pro and still i havent a clue HELP could someone tell me where there are tutorials on this subject or can someone tell me how it is done Thnaks in advance for your time and wisdon Georga Grace

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Attached Link: http://www.unwrap3d.com/

But it does look interesting, and it has a free demo so you can play with it. It's $39.95 if you decide to buy it.

Low distortion UV mapping is an art in itself. You can easily spend more time making a really good UV map for a model than you spend making the actual model. Because of that, there's no short answer to your question. Check out the camel tutorial at uvmapper.com to get started. The next version of UV mapper is going to have much better tools for this sort of stuff, but it has been delayed indefinately by the house fire Steve suffered so we'll just have to wait for that one.

my prayer are with steven in his time of need i hope everything works out for him

Unwrap3D is a great utility. I recommended it. You can work with low poly models and smoth them later. This action simplify the procces... but I agree with Ajax: Take your time to get a good low distorsion map.

Well, actually it takes me about 3 to 4 hours to model a costume. It takes me up to 20 hours of work to get a halfway useful UV-Map for my models. (OK, I'll have to admit, that I am a UV-Mapping-Masochist. I hate UV-Mapping, yet I can't stand the thought of not having a good UV-template for my model.) Maybe you should start preparing the UV-Mapping in Max. I always start like this: I give the whole piece of clothing a material named "fabric" and the seams a material named "seams". Then I start selecting areas that can easily be mapped with a cylindrical projection and give them a material called: add-to-fabric_pro-cylindrical. If I see an area, where I know, that I will have to use a flat projection, I'll start looking for the areas, that will be distorted by the flat mapping and give them a material called: add-to-fabric_flat-mapping-sides. When I am done with distributing materials on my model, I cut them to pieces (Makes you feel like Jack the Ripper or the guy from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.) and export them to Wavefront OBJ-Format. Now I simply start mapping the different materials in UV-Mapper. In UV-Mapper, you can simply stitch the different parts of the map together, giving you a good map. After mapping, simply take all the "add-to-"-materials and apply them to the basic "fabric"-material. Works great for me - and I do think that my mappings are halfway useful. Personally, I use UV-Mapper Pro, which is one of the best solutions - in my opinion. We are all waiting for Verion 3 of UV-Mapper, but Saint Steve Cox's house caught fire when the electricity was cut on the east-coast this summer and Steve's got better things to do than programming this app... By the way: Ajax, did you receive my mail? I seem to be unable to send you any mails.

wow who would have ever thought that mapping was so involved ^_^ thanks for the info

uvmapping is a neccasary evil .. with a bad uvmap a model is next to useless I use UVMApperPro, but I'm going to try the lite and demo version of Unwrap today .. its looks like it makes the 'bearskin rug' style of mapping for figures easier ..which would be great

Hi Joerg, Yep, I got an e-mail from you a couple of weeks ago with the M3 version of the tunic. Sorry, I thought I'd answered it but looking at my archive I see I didn't :-(

There is also the plan where you distort the mesh so it will map nicely planar (flatten it, pull out the edges), then after mapping it you use the original as a morph to get it back into shape.

There is also the plan where you distort the mesh so it will map nicely planar (flatten it, pull out the edges), then after mapping it you use the original as a morph to get it back into shape. Yo can get pretty nice maps this way. I don't like the way V3/M3 is mapped at all, I'm glad I don't do body textures anymore!