So okay, I created the texture. I  got the texture resource. And because I'm still not familiar enough with Blender to do it all in there I have to go back and forth between GIMP and Blender. Somebody shoot me now, because I'm in hell. I managed to get most of the stuff looking pretty decent on the shorts, but then it's time to texture the waist and even though I'm using a UV from Blender, I can't get the waist to show right. Mainly, it's that curve, that's messing me up. And I can't get the front and back to match up no matter what I do or how careful I am.

If you can afford it, I'd reccomend Stitch-Witch over at Daz.  Little pricey but works nice.

I would recommend using a program that you can paint directly on the model, Z Brush, Photoshop extended, mudbox something like that. I used to try and match textures on UV maps untill I got Z Brush. I would never go back, its a total pain trying to match textures on a UV map

Earl, in Blender, in uvmap editor, select the front and back short UV map.

Then go to => UV => Minimise strech.
That evens out what you have now.

You have edges close thogether, and edges far apart, this option evens that out and should help you on the way.

Secondary advantage is that you get a far more even texture distribution ver your object file.

Do not do this everywhere!!!!!!!!!
Sometimes you want this, sometimes not .

I see a single edge line splitting in a double edgeline.
Is that what you are talking about?
Because a split  in that area is never a good idea.

in uv window select one edge on waistband hit W (keyboard)

choose align (y or x depend which line you try)

then press P to pin it then unwrap again

if at first it wont work try again ;-)

or there some addons (but my fav dont work anymore boohoo)

hope that helps

In Blender one can also paint directly on the obj file.
But like everything else, it takes lots of practice to get a good result.

Quote - in uv window select one edge on waistband hit W (keyboard)

choose align (y or x depend which line you try)

then press P to pin it then unwrap again

if at first it wont work try again ;-)

or there some addons (but my fav dont work anymore boohoo)

 

hope that helps

It most definitely is, Hedd. Thanks! I still have to go back in and fix those seams, but if these align, that's all I need.

glad it worked blender has some pretty good uv tools (look at the adds too)

in mind of what LC said heres a great tut on painting in 2.72

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?350645-Layered-Painting-in-Blender-2-72

ok he's only showing you the how to's but you can use texture brush's etc

would be quite easy to texture something in blender and put it on a map that no one could use ;-) BUt that would be bloody annoying

Aw, man! I was SOOO close that time! Hedd, how do I Un-pin the map in Blender?

alt P

Beleive it or not, I'm almost done. Somehow though I still screwed up. A patch of the model, actually only a few vertexes, are not being textured, so I have to figure out now why and how to correct it.  I do know what I did to screw it up though. I had to delete a few vertices, but when I recreated them, they were no longer textured. Unfortunately, as I write this, I'm on my laptop at work which is a Windows machine, and the one I have at home is a Mac. Unfortunately, I don't know how to take a screen shot on a Windows machine, or I'd show what I'm talking about.

just so ya know in some 2D app's you can lay a grid over top the texture and move the texture to match the UVMaps.

I have never found a grid tool like that in Gimp.I've never really looked for it.
but ya might ask on a gimp forum.

funny enough you can do that in blender ~ open image texture in uv editor and then adjust the map to fit apply the textures and then bake back to original maps

you would have to bake back if you are using a merchant resource pack or you run the risk of the MR being extracted and thats against the rules ;-)

@EC would guess the verts you added are not on the material now so in edit mode select all (make sure you have the odd ones selected) then assign mat that should fix it

for the next time you hit the wall

unwrap the mash when you have just the basic form done

if you use a basic form as a template its easier to then add vertices and geometry and match it

starting the unwrapping early means that you have full controll and with the tools the newer versions of blender is adding the only limit is your ability

here is a visual of what I'm talking about with warp more or less.
it's been over 15 years since I've done this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diqkmI16_DU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GleuY1H_zcE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtitF15Qblk

photoshop might have more tools like this for meshes. I don't know photoshop.

Can Blender do this stuff ?
would I need to do this stuff if I'm texturing in Blender ?

yeah but no but sort of

vids you link show a photo being squeezed into a uv map

in blender you can make the uv map fit the pic (is t'other end of the stick lol )

look for tuts on uv maps and projection painting (in blender) when you get the hang of that then bake your "messed up " uv to the good uv

can have lots of diff uv maps on one object (good idea to name them )

is easier to do then explain and maybe take a couple of goes before it works right

is lots of tuts that explain it better then I can in here

I understand making UVMaps fit Textures.

I've never done baking in Blender.

but I get what ya saying.

& I've bookmarked this thread .

very educational thread :)

Heck, I'm still not even quite sure what "baking" a texture is.

not sure I can explain baking (properly)  but here goes ;-) you apply a set of textures to a model in (this case blender) then you can "copy"[bake] those textures to a uv map, can be a completely new map or the one your using to "bake" from, can bake normals (makes a low poly thing look high poly) can bake any pass you can think of (displacement, specular etc)

can use as many uv maps as you want for setting it all up, eg you could get a v4 skin tex to fit aiko can add sss. dirty vertex AO anything!! then "bake" it to the Aiko uv map

dont get me wrong its NOT a click click thing it takes time and bloody hard work ;-) but the results can be awesome

is lots of tuts on utube, look for baking, projection painting is lots of great tuts and a few not so helpfull ;-)

{note ; while I know these things are possible is some I aint done yet ;-) RL gets in the way lol }

quick tip # poser does this really good subD at render time so if you bake a displacement map crank up the subD in blender BUT export the low poly (subD under 2 )

ways this can help u as a vendor

can make your "dress" in blender ( keep it low poly) uv  it

shift D and add a multires mod set it to 3 (4 more if you have the ram ;-) lol )

goto sculpt and add the wrinkles etc (could run a cloth sim here and get somewhat real wrinkles but sculpt is maybe easier deffo quicker lol )

bake the displacment maps 

your low poly dynamic will look like a WOW and sim faster and cleaner then a high poly mesh

Well, this is a tip I have been promoting for years.

This is how I became known as the "Lo Poly Vilters". LOL.

But staying as Low in Polygon count, for as long as possible, makes life pretty easy.
In Blender, in Poser, in any 3D app.

We have bump map, normal map, and displacement map to play with.
All are "easy" when working Low Polygon.

Only upping the poly count at the very-very last stage, and only if absolutely required. 

And now that Poser has SubD, I see no reason to add those polygons any more.
Render with Smoothing ON and SubD level 1 and you get the best results possible.

The rest done by bump, normal or displacement map.
(I prefer displacement map over bump or normal on any given day, come rain or sunshine.) 

sculpt a hi polycount mesh.
retopology low polycount mesh for game.
copy "bake" texture ,normal etc etc from high polycount mesh to low polycount mesh.

is where baking got started a few years back but ya can use it for anything ya want.

zBrush,MudBox has remesher does retopology ,baking all in one click.

I've never tryed Blender remesher.

@Vilters keep on trucking bro !! you got to me if no one else? love the stuff you done on old dolls

@RK yeah you can!! but better to make a low poly, dup then multires and scupt could use something like deathguppy to make parts a lot higher poly before the multires

YOUR the only limit to your imagination (software can be "bent" lol )

Okay so let me see if I got this... Both Hedd and Tony say that going with a low poly mesh, then baking the texture is preferable to sculpting a detailed high poly mesh. So what determines quality?

Hello Earl, that is an easy answer.

Do you "see" the mesh?
Or?
Do you "see" the texture?

It is textures we see, and it is textures we render.

The mesh is only a rough wirecoat to hang the texture on.

And with bump, normal, and displacement map, even the mesh does not "have" to be very detailed.

The trick of the trade is to find the golden middle road between mesh and texture.

But in the end? Texture is what we see and render.

Best example are all the remappings DP did between V3 and V4 so that one mesh could take the textures of the other mesh. The textures stayed, but the meshes where different.(V3-V4)

Edit : Textures can be "textures" or procedurals from the material room.
Of my 14 outfits here, "none" have "textures" but all have material room procedurals.

Quote - Okay so let me see if I got this... Both Hedd and Tony say that going with a low poly mesh, then baking the texture is preferable to sculpting a detailed high poly mesh. So what determines quality?

you burn a high "lets say a million" polycount displacement map for a 20.000 polycount SubD character.
displacement maps will rase the polycount to a million at render time.
normal maps will keep the polycount at 20.000 at render time.

you burn  a high polycount normal map for a 3000 polycount game character.
so the polycount stays at 3000 but looks like a million polycount character

The killer details ya see in zBrush gallery is from high polycount meshes.
zBrush will go to a billion polycount mesh.but they would be a real pain to rig & impossible to use real time so we keep the polycount low and use normal maps.

Quote - > Quote - Okay so let me see if I got this... Both Hedd and Tony say that going with a low poly mesh, then baking the texture is preferable to sculpting a detailed high poly mesh. So what determines quality?

you burn a high "lets say a million" polycount displacement map for a 20.000 polycount SubD character.
displacement maps will rase the polycount to a million at render time.
normal maps will keep the polycount at 20.000 at render time.

you burn  a high polycount normal map for a 3000 polycount game character.
so the polycount stays at 3000 but looks like a million polycount character

The killer details ya see in zBrush gallery is from high polycount meshes.
zBrush will go to a billion polycount mesh.but they would be a real pain to rig & impossible to use real time so we keep the polycount low and use normal maps.

Well, I've always  assumed that there's some "sweet spot" for meshes and textures. In other words, where the details that can be sculpted in a mesh, are best left to a map. Particularly, in a program like Poser that bogs down under high polycounts, versus games where you can use higher polycounts but you have more dedicated hardware and memory designed to handle them.

As I said, it is a balance in the details.
Poly Count versus textures. Both consume memory.

Blender lets you bake the textures ; Bump map, the displacement map and the normal map. (I send you links to tutorials some time ago).

But?
Do not overdo it.
It is pointless to use all 3 (bump, displacement AND a normal map).

Normal and bump map are both "faking" 3D, while a displacement map is the only one that actually "displaces" its micro polygons in 3D space.

Personally, I prefer displacement, but I also use bump map if the object file needs it.

Must admit, Poser has really nice displacement, it's way better than the type they use in Carrara.  I love Carrara but hate it's displacement so much I put in a request for Carrara to get the same displacement tech as DS and Poser.

That was a while ago now (version 6 I think), and it got a lot of support if I recall, but sadly Version 8.5 still has that awful low-tech version.

Texture "Baking" also lets you Bake Ambient Occlusion and GI onto the textures of an entire environments allowing us to render animations that look like they have been rendered with GI.

This is part of the reason Video games look so good these days

Maxon Cinema4D has a powerful baking feature
that I admittedly need to start using more in preparing my animated scenes.

posers displacement is pretty awesome compared to most proggys!!!

well displacement maps are old tech anyways .
I'd aggravate carrara to get vector maps.

hint ,hint ,poser.

I expect poser pro 16 to have vector maps :)

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Okay so let me see if I got this... Both Hedd and Tony say that going with a low poly mesh, then baking the texture is preferable to sculpting a detailed high poly mesh. So what determines quality?

you burn a high "lets say a million" polycount displacement map for a 20.000 polycount SubD character.
displacement maps will rase the polycount to a million at render time.
normal maps will keep the polycount at 20.000 at render time.

you burn  a high polycount normal map for a 3000 polycount game character.
so the polycount stays at 3000 but looks like a million polycount character

The killer details ya see in zBrush gallery is from high polycount meshes.
zBrush will go to a billion polycount mesh.but they would be a real pain to rig & impossible to use real time so we keep the polycount low and use normal maps.

Well, I've always  assumed that there's some "sweet spot" for meshes and textures. In other words, where the details that can be sculpted in a mesh, are best left to a map. Particularly, in a program like Poser that bogs down under high polycounts, versus games where you can use higher polycounts but you have more dedicated hardware and memory designed to handle them.

Game characters you model polycount as high as you can get away with 300 to 1000's.
Depends on a lot of factors.

SubD characters more or less have a expectation across all apps ,polycount around 20,000.
ya could go as low as 10,000 or up to 40,000 but that's pushing it.
it's just what all apps exspect.

them killers details dont animate too well ;-) (but wish I could afford zbrush~an the brain to use it )

it all depends on what you want!!? animation a nice light mesh that deforms well, a game mesh needs to be tiny but with all the "cheats" going to make it look good but for most poser users the polycount is about right the dolls mostly work (hush vilters I know) is room for improvment but zbrush isnt a panacea for all the cgi ills

ps have a dig into blenders dyntopo ;-) its catching up and its free lol

them killers details dont animate too well ;-) (but wish I could afford zbrush~an the brain to use it )

I've never done anamation in poser.

you have blender ,poser ,renderosity.you have a goldmind setting right in front on you
all you half to do is reach out and take it :)
I used truespace 5 to get zBrush 1.5b ,lightwave 7 and used lightwave 7 to get a lot of app's including C4D 9.

it all depends on what you want!!? animation a nice light mesh that deforms well, a game mesh needs to be tiny but with all the "cheats" going to make it look good but for most poser users the polycount is about right the dolls mostly work (hush vilters I know) is room for improvment but zbrush isnt a panacea for all the cgi ills

all the apps are puting scupting tools in there app and autodesk has mudbox.
I'll use any app .
I hold no loyalty to any app .
zbrush don't have rigs like blender ,dynamics etc etc.
zbrush is good for textures but ya would still need a main app like blender for all the rest.
I have nothing bad to say about blender .
what I know about blender seems like a killer app just as good as any other main app.
guess I always say zbrush cause zbrush & smeagol started displacement maps.

ps have a dig into blenders dyntopo ;-) its catching up and its free lol

Quote -
Must admit, Poser has really nice displacement, it's way better than the type they use in Carrara.  I love Carrara but hate it's displacement so much I put in a request for Carrara to get the same displacement tech as DS and Poser.

That was a while ago now (version 6 I think), and it got a lot of support if I recall, but sadly Version 8.5 still has that awful low-tech version.

Would be great if we could get Steep Parallax mapping in the viewport to approximate displaced materials...