bandolin opened this issue on Jan 06, 2009 ยท 74 posts
svdl posted Sun, 25 January 2009 at 3:16 PM
Yeah, UV mapping is a royal pain.
I've learned a couple of tricks along the way about UV mapping. First of al: map early, and fix up often! If you postpone mapping until the object is ready in all its fine detail, UV mapping is extremely difficult.
In the case of these boots, I'd separate the different parts along logical seams. For example, the sole of the boot doesn't seamlessly connect to the leather on top - an UV seam there would be natural.
At this time, I'm building a set of fantasy/fetish stuff for V4, and I use the same approach: each cloth/leather/metal panel is mapped separately. The bodice part of the outfit consist of a front panel, left and right side panel and a back panel, and each of those is mapped separately, as are the straps, buckles, studs and whatever.
Oh, and a little tip for when you start morphihg: the HABware .OBJ exporter severely messes up vertex orders. I haven't tested gw:Obj yet, but preliminary other tests seem to indicate that it's a better importer/exporter. At least, it doesn't automatically crash Max 64 bit...
The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter