I didn't realize you were so fond of noses, Mike. :biggrin:

Oh please don't split the face with seams!
The most easy one side and one front photo can be manipulated as a texture the most successful is a texture for me...
It is so much easier to make a natural texture when everything is continuous
Also adding details like tattoos & make up with mask shaders is easier if texture is continuous
Larger lips and nipples is just a bad idea, ok those are the parts people want big but extra details there make the other parts of the texture looks poor and lower resolution!
Actually if you stitch torso and torso you can try RoadKill1 which is free and does a nice job unfolding
There should be a balance between distortion and seams you can't have both, this is a fact...

EnglishBob has a tutorial for uvmapping with  UVMapper and Roadkill (both are free):
http://www.morphography.uk.vu/

Thanks for the tip, Kerya. I'd seen the tutorial some time ago, but then completely forgot that roadkill existed. I just have one small problem: the download section of the Roadkill homepage is very confusing and I can't see how to get the standalone version. Any help?

I've never noticed any difference they all seem to be standalone.  LOL

The one under Maya

Roadkill 1.1 (release candidate 3)

Later down it says:

Installation

After downloading unzip all the files to a directory. Close Winzip or whatever program
you use to extract zip files. DO NOT click on install program from within Winzip.
Double click RoadKill Install and click Install.

RoadKill the stand alone app will now be under Start -> Programs -> Roadkill 1.1

Quote - pitklad: I'm sorry, but I believe with the tools we have these days, avoiding distortion is more important than avoiding seams. Here's my updated layout for the face, with the lips and ears re-attached and the back of the head separated, so that they can use different scales.

Perhaps, but you did say you'd like to see procedural shaders for her, right?

When you make a feature like the lips here split and rotate within the UV map, it becomes very difficult to describe things with math. If I want to make a series of fine cracks and ridges for the lips, I want to do it with a consistent U or V as the driver. Here you've made it so that each lip requires a different equation of a line to run the effect across the lips.

Worse, I'll never be able to make the effect span the seam seamlessly.

If you then embed this UV map in a larger one as I saw in an earlier posting, the math becomes even worse.

However, if you were to also supply a texture that converted UV coordinates into "You are k of N units from lip left corner to lip right corner" then I don't care what the UV layout is.

What I'm saying is that procedurally, I need to drive effects with simple lines and curves that go from 0 to 1, and have two dimensions that are at right angles (orthogonal). Anything more than that becomes really hard except in special cases.

Consider my procedural pore generator. It is basically generates tiny little worm-hole shapes randomly distributed, with a known minimum and maximum separation from each other.

If you have the nose area separated from the rest of the face, I cannot generate usable pores for that. Those at the edge will be cut off or perhaps right next to one on the other side of the edge.

On the other hand, I understand that a protrusion, if done without a cut and move, would cause UV density distortion. I saw that with my procedural pores. Those on the tip of the nose were bigger than anywhere else.

So now that I said all that, I don't have a solution. You can't fit 4 square inches of skin into the middle of the face that is only 1 square inch.

I'm curious why the upper eye lid seems to cover less space than the lower eyelid.

If you want consistent density or you need detail on the upper lid for makeup it has to be bigger. When you close your eyes, the upper one comes down across the whole eye.

When you run the UV-unwrap tool, are the eyes closed?

I just didn't know what a PTB was. "Peanut-butter-Tomato-Bacon" sandwich? "People-That-B**ch"? "Potatoes-That-Burp"? "Purple-Tophat-Boys"? "Punchers-That-Beat people"? "Perpertraters-That-Blew-up"? <No, that's Al-Quada....

I stil don't know. what a PTB is.:laugh:

bagginsbill: yes, I see what you're trying to do with the lips. I can make then more regular if I cut them off the face, but then people complain because the texture won't blend nicely. If I make the whole face seamless, I get massive distortion everywhere. It's just not possible to satisfy all the constraints  at the same time. So far that little cut through the bottom part of the face is the least horrible option I could find.

I like your idea of using textures to encode location for the shaders, though. Just let me know what you need when you need it and I'll do what I can.

Yeah, I forgot to close the eyes before doing the mapping. I'll fix that later. Just have to cut off the lacrimals to make room for the upper lids.

PTB = Powers That Be :biggrin:

But I like "People that B-I-T-C-A" as well.

I'm not up on internet abreviations. :laugh: I'm just out of the loop. PTB just sound like some kind of sandwich. :lol:

Don't feel bad. You may just as well put it down as another one of my obscure Whedonisms.

Quick poll: should I leave the hands and feet attached to the body or separate them? I have no strong opinion either way, although I have a slight tendency towards leaving them attached. If the feet are attached, I can't leave them in one piece because of the heels. Should I cut off just the heels like here, or the whole soles including the heels?

That looks very good to me... the heel cut seems rational. I vote for leaving the hands and feet attached but if you do cut them will they be on separate maps? If you do cut them I would heavily prefer you cut the where the clothing cuff would be a bit up the shin and forearm rather then right at the hand and foot body part edge...

I can't even begin to imagine the best solution for the face. I am curious, odf, what face UV do you like the most among those all ready out there? So many merchants create their own mid-line face seams for V3 and V4 by copying and flipping the face bilaterally... first thing I usualy have to do on someone elses texture is go in and clone out the texture symetry! ;)

I just know nothing about mapping... could the head be cut into vertical strips like with a Mercator or Miller globe projection so the distortion was hidden under the chin and above the hairline? Then the scalp cut out and the entire underjaw "triangle" cut out? The reason I am thinking this way is I used to sew very anatomically correct rag dolls where the proper paterning created very realistic body part volumes... the arangements of panels and seams for the head was very interesting and could create very accuarate volumes even with hidden seams. That and I find with clothes in Poser, there are the majority which are mapped as conventional 3D models and then the occasional one I encounter that is cut out on the UV map just like a Butterick pattern and those always texture so so much better...

just to say...  no, seams are not easier to deal with than distortion. not even vaguely.  just look at the huge number of free V3 skins, and compare them to the number of free V4 skins.   as much as you can keep attached without sever distortion, the better.

I agree with cobalt dream. I think it is much easier to deal with ( mild ) distortion than seams. As long as it isn't too severe it shouldn't be a problem. You may want to make a test map with just a simple color fill with noise added in to see how severe the stretching is. Texture artist ( and Im not one of them Lol ) can compensate by making micro detail smaller in areas that stretch where if you have split areas there's not much you can do unless as you said you have the tools to paint on the model in realtime.

I really think you should connect the upper and lower body and especially on the face don't split the lip/chin. That would make mask control maps nearly impossible. Of course this is just my opinion. It's easy to suggest things but it takes a lot of skill to actually pull it off. I just think the way it's cut now ( particuarly the lip/chin cut ) will be less flexible. Again Im far from an expert on any of this just a suggestion but I would probably mark the seams something like in this pic.

Well, I'll have a go at re-connecting the upper and lower body. But let me stress again that we're talking massive distortion here, not just mild distortion. There's just no way of getting the face to flatten nicely without that extra seam. And there will be seams in the breast area, even if I manage to re-connect. So it's not a question anymore of whether to have seams in those areas, but only of where to put them so they do the least damage.

What I'm becoming increasingly aware of here is that one size just might not fit all. Tools that let one paint or apply photos directly on the model are becoming increasingly common and affordable now. I've even seen a freeware version of something called Blacksmith3D-Paint advertised which can apparently do that. If you use that kind of tool, it's all about avoiding strong distortion. Again, some mild distortion is obviously fine. That's what I'm targeting the UV mapping at, because I think that's where things are heading, and that's the kind of tool I would use.

That said, I'm still doing all I can to avoid seams wherever possible. Having unnecessary seams is just messy, confusing and, frankly, bad craftsmanship. Also, where there are seams, they need to align nicely. Distortion across seams as it apparently happens in V4 is just a huge no-no. I'm glad that people have been coming out so strongly against seams, because it encouraged me to try harder. Of course I'm just an amateur, so I might not be coming up with the best possible solution here. That's just how it is.

As I said before, I think there's no reason though that we can have only one UV-mapping for a figure. I quite like the idea of having an alternative mapping to support V3 textures. I'm no expert, but my feeling is that it should be entirely possible to have a MAT pose apply a different mapping to a figure from within Poser via a Python script. I'm happy to try and figure something out. I'd have a go at making a V3-compatible mapping myself, but obviously there are people around who are much more talented and experienced in that particular area. So I'm hoping to see some of those alternative mappings show up at the Marketplace very soon after Antonia's release.

Quote - What I'm becoming increasingly aware of here is that one size just might not fit all.

Lol ain't that the truth. That to me is one of the coolest things about this thread. We can debate the preffered pros and cons of different methods. In the end there really just suggested preferences. Any method has strengths and weaknesses. I do hope you reconsider the lip/chin
split. I would prefer that stitched more so than the upper/lower body. As you say though Im sure if some do not prefer your layout they can make thier own. Myself I hate uv mapping because of the balance between minimizing distortion and making it seam friendly is a nearly  impossible task. I would love to make some morphs for her. That atleast Im pretty decent at. ;)

JB123: I don't see a way to avoid that split. If I did, I would, seriously. One thing you have to realize is that her nose is bigger and her features a bit more "3d" than those of typical Poser figure. That's how I built her, and quite intentionally so, because I wanted her to look at real as possible. But it will make those distortion problems even harder.

But I'm now going to look at some of the mappings for figures I own. Maybe I can learn a trick or two.

I did some experimenting and will have another go at closing that gap in the middle of the face. I can get something fairly reasonable if I cut only the underside of the chin, which should be a fairly harmless position for a seam. The tip of the nose will have a bit too much stretching for my taste, but maybe that's not quite as bad as having the lips cut in half. I will however have to do some more manual adjusting than UVLayout lets me do comfortably. I"m not sure whether I'm reading the manual wrong or need the pro version for that kind of thing. Anyway, off to learn Roadkill and possibly Blender.

Bleh! RoadKill has a weird interface, and every time I try something interesting, it plays dead. Wings is pretty much the same. I love it for modeling, but the UV mapping stuff is horrible. I hate, hate, hate Blender's ridiculous interface, but I guess I'll have to bite. Unless I get some generous donations, it's my last hope.

odf: Blender interface is not ridiculous simply is different, but not that hard to learn, once you get it you'll understand how optimized is it for fast and efficient working.
UV unwraping in Blender works fantastic, you don't have to learn all about Blender to use its UV mapping funtions.

look at this tutorials
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=1584
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=1586

http://bgdm.katorlegaz.com/lscm_tute/lscm_tute.htm

Have you looked at a combination of the Bodypaint demo and the Riptide plugin?

ima70: It is ridiculous to have to learn a whole new set of conventions for every new tool, and it is a pain every time one switches between tools. Tell me how powerful Blender is all you want, but don't give me that crap on how marvelous its interface is. If Blender is the only program you ever use, yay, then it's great.

That said, it might be the only way to get all the tools I need for the UV mapping without paying a shitload of $$$.

And... half an hour with Blender and I'm ready to punch someone again. How the fk do I get my existing UV maps into Blender for editing? The unwrapping tutorials don't help. I've already done the bldy unwrapping. ::fumes::

I think I'll try to get to grips with Wings instead. At least the interface makes sense, even if the UV edit mode doesn't.

Quote - Have you looked at a combination of the Bodypaint demo and the Riptide plugin?

Does it work on Linux?

Because, quite frankly, I'm sick of Windows only software that craps out while trying to talk to the non-existing graphics card on my virtual machine. Seriously, whenever I deal with 3d software, I feel like that guy in Lest Darkness Fall who all of a sudden finds himself back in the middle ages.
[/rant]
 

odf: I never sayed Blender interface is mavelous, never sayed is the only program I ever use, I only said that once you get use to it is very eficient, as you mentioned Blender as an alternative to get the UV you want I just wanted to poit you to some starting tutorials, just wanted to help, sorry If you misundertood me, maybe I don't know how to  make my bad english to sound helpfull :-)
By the way most of the time I use Blender and Wings.

odf, maybe you need a few days off. :)
you'll come back with fresh eyes anyway. :)

Quote - odf: I never sayed Blender interface is mavelous, never sayed is the only program I ever use, I only said that once you get use to it is very eficient, as you mentioned Blender as an alternative to get the UV you want I just wanted to poit you to some starting tutorials, just wanted to help, sorry If you misundertood me, maybe I don't know how to  make my bad english to sound helpfull :-)
By the way most of the time I use Blender and Wings.

Sorry, I didn't mean to attack you! I'm just a but frustrated right now, as you can see from my other posts. I know what you mean about the interface. I understand it can be very efficient once one gets used to it. I just think it could be just as efficient and even more so while at least sticking with some of the established conventions. Unfortunately, I tend to be very impatient about such things.

Quote - odf, maybe you need a few days off. :)
you'll come back with fresh eyes anyway. :)

Yes, that was quite obvious, wasn't it?

I just took a week's leave from my day job, though. What am I going to do, look at internet pr0n all day?

By no ways I felt attaked, I understand you! I can see you are very concerned with this great project.
What I'd really like to see is the face map without the seam in the lips and chin, I think the last tutorial I posted show a nice face layout IMHO.

Hi ODF
Im not sure how to import marked seams in Blender. You would have to re-cut/mark them in the edit window within blender. If you've already unwrapped in another program the uv layout should remain the same in Blender's Uv editing window.

I feel your frustration and I agree Blender is not a program to be learned over night. I only suggested it as an alternative once your trial uv layout runs out. My initial feelings were the same but then it kind of grew on me as I scratched the surface.( Still just scratching the surface after about 4-5 months.lol ) Wings uv mapping annoys me to no end as much as Blenders annoys you. I have tried roadkill in the past but couldn't come to grips with it. I don't have much money for expensive tools ( and this is just a hobby ) so I learned Blenders Uv mapping off and on over a period of a few months. It took me about a week to get the bare basics down. I don't use it that often though I only use it for uv mapping and sculpting. I use wings for modeling.
It's a useful tool but probably not everyone's cup of tea.

I have a suggestion and I don't know if it will help or not but going back to pat's plain jane thread
he once mentioned doing uv's on a larger morphed model then the stretching is not as bad on the default shape. I wonder if this idea could work in reverse on your model. Make the nose smaller but have it loaded as it is now as an active morph on the default figure.

Please don't be frustrated. This thread and a few others ( mostly BagginsBill's threads ) are the only reason I come here. No matter how you cut it, it won't be to everyone's taste. My biggest concern as far as texturing flexibility would be the chin split. If  you could stitch that and still have
reasonable distortion it would be great. If not so what she'll still be great. :)

Cheers
JB

Hi JB,

I know that taking the time to get to grips with Blender will absolutely be worth it in the end. It is obviously a very powerful program. Also, it is free and works on Linux. Almost too good to be true, so learning the strange interface is probably a small price to pay.

So I bought myself a book called "The Essential Blender" when I was in town today. Expect to find me in the Blender forum a lot in the weeks and months to come.

What I meant was that UVLayout saves an .obj file with the UV mapping in it. When I try to import that into Blender, I get an error message, although Wings imports it just fine, and I didn't have any problems with other .obj files in Blender. When I export a simple UV-mapped cube from Wings, I can load that into Blender, but I don't see the mappings. Not sure if it gets ignored or if I need to tell Blender explicitly to use the existing mapping.

If I can't get the mapping in, that's no disaster either. I'll just do it again from scratch. The cutting and flattening itself shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Figuring out where to put the seams is what takes the time, and I can use my existing maps as a guide. Still, it would be neat if there were an easy way to exchange the UV data between Blender and those other programs. If all else fails, I'll have a look at the import/export scripts. I speak Python and I speak .obj, so all I need to figure out are the Blender-specific bits.

All that said, taking a few days off from Antonia and doing other stuff is probably a good idea. I have an Iain Banks book to finish, for one. :biggrin:

Cheers,
O.

Sometimes you have to step away for a bit.

I've had to step away from all my projects this past week, stupid virus hit me (human virus not computer).

Maybe a good book and a short rest will help you a little.
Looking forward to the final stages. :)

Well, I have at least two good books, now.

I'm starting on the 3rd in the Harry Potter series.
A friend loaned me her set and let her borrow the final Twilight and two of the latest Ann Rice Vampire sets.

Nothing like a good read when you can't do anything else. :biggrin:

I think I will simply make and provide two maps for Antonia: one more traditional and one with the extra seams around the breasts and in the face to avoid distortion. And I will try to come up with a simple way for the user to switch between maps. Maybe use geometry switching via Poser channels, if someone can explain to me how that works. My wacko odf maps [TM] will be better for use with 3d painting programs, whereas the high-distortion ones will supposedly make the traditional Photoshopping of textures easier.

Now this saved as obj doesn't contain any groups so you have to use UV mapper to export the unfolded uvs file and import it on the grouped on ( EnglishBob tutorial pretty much covers it all)

The good thing (or bad for some cases) with the unfolding is that RoadKill doesn't change the borders of your uvs just change the inside positioning of points for minimum distortion

Now looking at the free space I got 2 ideas for more uvs economy, since this thread is for suggestions I thought that we can say anything we want, than only you know the best as you know the model better than anyone

I agree that looking at various models seams guides will give you great ideas

Also antonia should come with one official uvs the way you like it and than people can use the V3 mapping which I'm sure will be very popular also

Thanks for the suggestion, pitklad. That's actually one of the variants I looked at. Even more than the space economy, I like that it avoids the extra seam at the collar bone. The problem is that with the UVLayout demo, I can't make symmetric layouts automatically, and with the unfolding you suggest I have to position the arms manually, and the whole thing ends up really assymetric. That's part of the reason I'm looking for an alternative tool now. The other is that I can't figure out how to move vertices manually in UVLayout.

I understand how RoadKill is supposed to work. It just doesn't on my machine. Even UVLayout gets unresponsive sometimes, but usually it wakes up after a while. Roadkill simply freezes, and there's nothing at all I can do. So, yeah, that's that.

I think the thing for me to do now is learn Blender. It may take a while, but its UV mapping looks really powerful and seems to have all the features I am currently missing or don't know how to access. Also, I can run it natively on Linux and don't have to use a virtual machine. I'm assuming that that causes a lot of the problems I'm having with 3d software for Windows. Fortunately, Poser is fine, mostly. There are some minor glitches, but they don't keep me from doing what I need to do.

Quote - Tools that let one paint or apply photos directly on the model are becoming increasingly common and affordable now. I've even seen a freeware version of something called Blacksmith3D-Paint advertised which can apparently do that.

so you've tried those? because i've tried doing something similar with Blender and let me tell you, it was not even vaguely possible for me to just go in there and start painting.  i'm sure if i took a year or two to master one of those programs i could do it, but that seems not worth it for me, to be honest.  i'd rather spend a year or two learning to model things that are built to texture easily.

when you say "major" distortion, again, i think you should look at V3.  she's what texture artists found easiest to work with.  V4's been out for  years now, and most of the commercial textures for her are the same thing over and over because they're mostly from a few merchant resources and people reusing their own work over and over  to deal with her seams.

3d painting programs are of variable quality and features and are by no means a silver bullet.  basically telling artists to buy and learn new software to be able to make stuff for your figure will probably hinder 3rd party production.  but i realize that's not really important.  you have what you want in her with procedurals, and she's primarily for you.

this is usually what happens with models.   modlers don't  tend to texture, or if they do, they're only doing it to finish off their model.  and you seem to be doing this more for yourself than anyone else.  i guess what i mean to say is that i really think you should make her for yourself first, so definitely err on the side of difficult mapping that you think is cool.  i'm just selfishly  disappointed that she won't be (imho) very user friendly.

Quote - > Quote - Have you looked at a combination of the Bodypaint demo and the Riptide plugin?

Does it work on Linux?

Im using C4D and Bodypaint with Linux (Wine) for several years now. Because C4D is well programmed, there is no problem using it. It's fast and ultra-stable on my machine.

Alternate geometry occupies RAM I believe... it can be established by an INJpose but once you do that it takes memory as well. Better to provide two geometry and two .cr2 or else one geometry and .cr2 with an alternate .uvs for people who want to switch the mapping. If the morphs are by INJ the download cost of the second .cr2 wouldn't amount to much. Is dpHoadly still interested in doing the Unimesh map? Then you could do whatever the heck you wanted if you knew Hoadly was doing the unimesh for to supply cheap or free for people who would rather contend with distortion than seams.

Myself I work full figure in 1024 pixels or less for my own amusement these days (my commercial work with Poser was mainly Toons) so I don't need a lot of resolution... high quality Poser 4 figure maps such as the ones by Staale Loseth actually work just fine for me. I even use a skin tile with RealSkinShader sometimes the only problem being eyebrows. For me, I hate body sculpting on the textures and really want my textures just for pigment and texture variation as seen on the knees say as opposed to the belly. Does anyone have a good procedural setup for pores I could plug into my relativly simple skin shader setup? Has anyone accomplished a good procedural iris for the eye and lips?

cobaltdream: Hey, no reason to go all selfishly disappointed just yet.

First of all, nothing's set in stone. Even if I go ahead with this mapping now, there's no reason someone shouldn't make an alternative one that's more user-friendly. You are right, I have no experience in making textures, either with the traditional techniques or direct 3d painting, so no matter how I decide now, there'll probably be some problems with the UVs that will only reveal themselves later.

Second of all, there will be testing. I'll show my suggestions to some texture makers, let them have a go at it and if they all agree that those extra seams are really that bad, off they go. Or you know, most likely I'll have two mappings, but make the most popular one the default.

Also, I still like the idea of having a V3 compatible mapping, and I'll have a chat with DPH about that. I just don't think it's a good idea to just stick with what we have and equip Poser figures with V3 maps for all eternity.

Anyway, I'll need to spend some time learning Blender now before I do the final touches. Apart from that pesky extra-seams issue, do y'all think it's a reasonable way of unfolding the model?

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Have you looked at a combination of the Bodypaint demo and the Riptide plugin?

Does it work on Linux?

Im using C4D and Bodypaint with Linux (Wine) for several years now. Because C4D is well programmed, there is no problem using it. It's fast and ultra-stable on my machine.

Hmm, sounds interesting. How much is C4D these days? Is there a demo version I could try to see if it works with that stupid ATI card in my laptop?