What am I doing Wrong? Everything keeps coming out bass Ackwords!

If someone could make sense of this ... I might be able to texture as well ... or be in your boat Earl, keeping you company.

Wouldn't be an issue if all I wanted to do was use solid colors. It wouldn't matter. But I think I've figured out a way to create the illusion I need of a fully stocked supermarket shelf, but I need the image to come out right.

First I have never done this ... but if I'm not mistaken in blender you CAN assign HOW a texture map is unwrapped. I just don't remember where ... many tutorials ago.

I've found a small, but somewhat laborious fix for this using GIMP.

The UV islands seem to have been mirrored incorrectly somehow.. Was this unwrapped in Blender? You can try fixing it by selecting each island one at a time, then mirror that island on the X or Y axis (whichever corrects the direction). Obviously, once you mirror the island it will cause the numbers to appear backward in the UV editor but correct on the model. So, you'll have to remove the numbers and replace them once the islands are mirrored on the proper axis.

Because UV mapping can be such a headache for everyone and I usually will no recommend a paid resource I feel I should recommend this one and it happens to be on sale today for $10.99 Udemy Blender 2.8 UV Mapping by Darrin Lile certified Blender trainer I can not post the direct link to the course since it is against TOS but gave enough info that you should be able to find it. It is a 6 hour course but it totally in Blender 2.8 and I would highly recommend it

I'm making progress... I think. Hopefully, when I finish, I'll be able to load whole sections of shelves with these low poly blocks. It's not perfect, but they're supposed to be view from a distance. I'll also include separate individual props for close ups.

By the way, thanks for the advice about how to correct this.

Looks like you've got a handle on this Earl. Look forward to seeing more of the "products" as you create them.

The nice thing about this is that once I figure this out all I have to do is figure out what products I want to put in a spot. Produce is going to be a bitch to keep low poly though.

There's a specific technique to unwrapping a box which would prevent UV islands getting rotated or reversed like that. Not sure which version of Blender you're using there, but here's a video from back in 2012 that shows the proper way to mark seams and unwrap a cube, or any box-shaped object. It's easier to manage the UVs in one island rather than having 6 separate island panels.

LuxXeon posted at 4:51PM Tue, 24 March 2020 - #4384418

There's a specific technique to unwrapping a box which would prevent UV islands getting rotated or reversed like that. Not sure which version of Blender you're using there, but here's a video from back in 2012 that shows the proper way to mark seams and unwrap a cube, or any box-shaped object. It's easier to manage the UVs in one island rather than having 6 separate island panels.

I'm still using 2.79 unfortunately, but hope to upgrade soon.

So here's the result of my labors so far today. Managed to get that section of shelf stocked using a cube. I'll have to get a little more inventive on some of the other stuff, but so far I'm happy.

Still making headway.

In the first post - have you checked if any of the normals are flipped inside? (I'm not sure how but I often end up with a few flipped normals here or there - this makes blender want to unwrap them flipped and the texture only looks right from the 'normal out' side. Just a thought.

Your stacked shelves look good

Well, finished the stocking, but the texturing has just begun.

Someone in another forum asked for a perspective view:

Still having troubles texturing. So I decided to move on to the bread aisle. That means I need to make a loaf of bread. I used a cube and following to the video that Luxxeon posted I marked the seams. It unloaded as shown. I used a color grid to identify the top and bottom, but when I tried to texture it with a image of bread, this is what I got. From what I can see, it's still upside down. Maybe I can flip it in GIMP.

Its not necessarily upside down, but half your textures certainly ARE upside down and that's the way its supposed to be. Your unwrap looks fine.

Can I recommend googling a "paper cube template" to cut out and assemble? Look for one that resembles the way the seams are on your UV layout. You don't actually have to glue the cube together, but print a couple out, draw on them a bit, and at least fold them into the cube shape. I realize it'll probably seem like a grade school task, but I think it might help you better understand how 3D space translates to 2D UV layout space.

Here's a quick example of what's [likely] going on with the UV layout you used. The "Right" and "Left" sides, are always going to be opposite of each other, so if the right side is "right side up" as you look at it on your UV layout, then the left side has to be "upside down". In this example, the "front" and the "back" will oppose each other as well, tho they'll be 90 degrees off the vertical. [Note if you unwrapped with the "right" [or left] as the unifying side, then the "front" and "back" would be oriented vertically.]

Note - You didn't indicate which was the "top" in your UV layout, so this assumes that you put the majority of seams on the "bottom" surface [which is what I would do for a loaf of bread], so that everything connects to the top. If you did it differently, that's OK, you'll just to think of the orientations a bit differently, and that's where the paper cubes will help.

You said you used a color grid to determine the top and bottom, which is great, you didn't say if/how it was labeled tho. Here's an updated version of the color grid I used when I started UV'ing. Its a color grid with text added so you can better tell where on the grid you and, and more importantly what the orientation is. Eventually, as I got more experienced I moved away from the labels, to just a plain grid, but they help when you're starting out.

Keep in mind, that's its okay for things on your UV layout to be oriented side-wards, and upside-down, etc, that's normal. You'll get used to rotating stuff in GIMP to match the orientation, or rotating the whole canvas while you're working on one section if its orientation isn't "vertical". When unwrapping you want to prioritize having as few seams as possible, and placing those seams in inconspicuous places whenever possible, and that will come at that cost of sometimes having sections upside down on your UV layout.

Sorry, if this comes off as patronizing, I don't mean it that way, I don't know what you're experience level with this sort of stuff is.

Thanks Warlock279, I'll try as you suggest.

I had to google unwrapping a cube, but I finally found what I needed to do it right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDABx8wWGR4

I believe I finally got the cube unwrapped properly. I made this loaf of bread. Still not finished though.

I haven't figure it all out completely, but I am getting better at texturing these products.

Looking better!

Could I suggest a few individuals for at least some of the items? You seem to be getting the hang of uv'ing and you've already sourced the images, it'd be quick and easy to make an individual version for a few of the items. Then you could push your "full stock" block back a row or so for those items, and have an individual or two out front/stacked on top/whatever. You don't have to do it for every item, but a few would be a quick way to give a more natural and realistic look to the shelves.

Sure it begins to look good. I am geting hungry :)

Warlock279 posted at 11:55AM Thu, 16 April 2020 - #4386200

Looking better!

Could I suggest a few individuals for at least some of the items? You seem to be getting the hang of uv'ing and you've already sourced the images, it'd be quick and easy to make an individual version for a few of the items. Then you could push your "full stock" block back a row or so for those items, and have an individual or two out front/stacked on top/whatever. You don't have to do it for every item, but a few would be a quick way to give a more natural and realistic look to the shelves.

I already have several individual prop items for this set, but as I'm trying to fill up these shelves AND keep the poly count down, you just haven't seen them.

Here's a sample of some products I already have made. The milk, BTW, is already loaded in the scene. in the Dairy Case. I'll see if I can render a view for you.

Here's the render. Sorry it's so grainy.

EClark1894 posted at 4:13PM Thu, 16 April 2020 - #4386429

I already have several individual prop items for this set, but as I'm trying to fill up these shelves AND keep the poly count down, you just haven't seen them.

More wouldn't radically impact your scene. You'd be looking at 100 items for 600 polygons [1200 tris], and over 200 for 2500 triangles. That's nothing to modern computers, even a game engine running in real-time would hardly take notice of that. Your bigger risk is likely texture memory, the more textures you have the more ram you're using for textures.

If you wanted to save some texture memory on the individual items, you could "float" the polygons on your existing texture sheet for that item. That would cost you a few more verts, but again, nigh meaningless at the counts we're talking, and it saves you the texture space.

If you wanted to shave some polygons on the milk case. you could use a sloped shelf. With the slope you'd only need individual cartons for the first, maybe, two rows of the case, after which you could switch to a single block like you're using for the cereal shelves; barring an unusually low shot designed intentionally to expose the cheat, you'd never be able to see the tops of the stuff back there because of the slope and the shelf above.

Warlock279 posted at 10:50AM Sat, 18 April 2020 - #4386449

EClark1894 posted at 4:13PM Thu, 16 April 2020 - #4386429

I already have several individual prop items for this set, but as I'm trying to fill up these shelves AND keep the poly count down, you just haven't seen them.

More wouldn't radically impact your scene. You'd be looking at 100 items for 600 polygons [1200 tris], and over 200 for 2500 triangles. That's nothing to modern computers, even a game engine running in real-time would hardly take notice of that. Your bigger risk is likely texture memory, the more textures you have the more ram you're using for textures.

If you wanted to save some texture memory on the individual items, you could "float" the polygons on your existing texture sheet for that item. That would cost you a few more verts, but again, nigh meaningless at the counts we're talking, and it saves you the texture space.

If you wanted to shave some polygons on the milk case. you could use a sloped shelf. With the slope you'd only need individual cartons for the first, maybe, two rows of the case, after which you could switch to a single block like you're using for the cereal shelves; barring an unusually low shot designed intentionally to expose the cheat, you'd never be able to see the tops of the stuff back there because of the slope and the shelf above.

I did something like that already. I got rid of the bottoms and backs of cartons. Things that the camera will never really see anyway.

Thanks to a Windstorm we had last Monday, It's raining inside my house today. In the meantime, I've been trying to keep busy. Here is some stuff I've already had on my computer...

I made a gallon of milk...

I couldn't sleep so I slimmed it down and made it into a half gallon container...

Had some Ice cream already...

But this one has me stumped. I think I can texture it right... mostly... well, at least the eggs.

EClark1894 posted at 1:38AM Sat, 25 April 2020 - #4386613

I did something like that already. I got rid of the bottoms and backs of cartons. Things that the camera will never really see anyway.

Hmm, be careful with that. Depending on your render engine, you could end up with problems with your shadows. Blender by default treats all surfaces as double sided I believe, so it shouldn't be a problem there, but other software might not. The way shadows are generally ray cast is when the ray hits the back side of a polygon it casts a shadow forward from that polygon. If you've deleted the back and bottom faces you might have also deleted your shadow casting faces. If you get "holes" in your shadows from those cartons, you'll know why.

EClark1894 posted at 1:44AM Sat, 25 April 2020 - #4386615

But this one has me stumped. I think I can texture it right... mostly... well, at least the eggs.

Its not hard, treat it like two cubes instead of one. One cube for the top half, and one cube for the bottom half. Then place them beside each other with the shared "hinge" edge. You're going to get a lot of stretching in the "egg holes" but don't worry about that, they're just going to get a solid color anyway.

Hope you can get the raining inside stopped sooner rather than later, been there before, and it sucks. :/

Warlock279 posted at 7:56PM Sat, 25 April 2020 - #4387264

EClark1894 posted at 1:38AM Sat, 25 April 2020 - #4386613

I did something like that already. I got rid of the bottoms and backs of cartons. Things that the camera will never really see anyway.

Hmm, be careful with that. Depending on your render engine, you could end up with problems with your shadows. Blender by default treats all surfaces as double sided I believe, so it shouldn't be a problem there, but other software might not. The way shadows are generally ray cast is when the ray hits the back side of a polygon it casts a shadow forward from that polygon. If you've deleted the back and bottom faces you might have also deleted your shadow casting faces. If you get "holes" in your shadows from those cartons, you'll know why.

EClark1894 posted at 1:44AM Sat, 25 April 2020 - #4386615

But this one has me stumped. I think I can texture it right... mostly... well, at least the eggs.

Hope you can get the raining inside stopped sooner rather than later, been there before, and it sucks. :/

Got my tax refund and Stimulus check same day, so I was able to get the roof repaired.

In the mean time, I've started working onstocking other parts of the store. Today, for example I started working in Produce.

Glad to hear you got the roof taken care of! :)

Quick thought on the produce, which is looking pretty good, do you have enough geometry in the lettuce/cabbage that you could take a quick pass at sculpting it? I can't see any faceting so I'm guessing they're plenty robust. I don't mean anything crazy, but if you just went into sculpt mode, and added a bit of a ridge here and a bit of an indent there by gently pushing the geometry you've got, that matched your textures, you'd get a more natural shape, its a bit eerily round right now! You could do similar for the cucumber just to give it a bit more of an organic shape as well.

Warlock279 posted at 3:52PM Tue, 28 April 2020 - #4387598

Glad to hear you got the roof taken care of! :)

Quick thought on the produce, which is looking pretty good, do you have enough geometry in the lettuce/cabbage that you could take a quick pass at sculpting it? I can't see any faceting so I'm guessing they're plenty robust. I don't mean anything crazy, but if you just went into sculpt mode, and added a bit of a ridge here and a bit of an indent there by gently pushing the geometry you've got, that matched your textures, you'd get a more natural shape, its a bit eerily round right now! You could do similar for the cucumber just to give it a bit more of an organic shape as well.

I don't really sculpt so I can't really answer your question. The cabbage is just a regular UV sphere. The cucumber is a circle. I did smooth shade them though, so that's probably why you don't see any faceting.

Warlock279 posted at 11:27AM Wed, 29 April 2020 - #4386449

EClark1894 posted at 4:13PM Thu, 16 April 2020 - #4386429

I already have several individual prop items for this set, but as I'm trying to fill up these shelves AND keep the poly count down, you just haven't seen them.

More wouldn't radically impact your scene. You'd be looking at 100 items for 600 polygons [1200 tris], and over 200 for 2500 triangles. That's nothing to modern computers, even a game engine running in real-time would hardly take notice of that. Your bigger risk is likely texture memory, the more textures you have the more ram you're using for textures.

If you wanted to save some texture memory on the individual items, you could "float" the polygons on your existing texture sheet for that item. That would cost you a few more verts, but again, nigh meaningless at the counts we're talking, and it saves you the texture space.

If you wanted to shave some polygons on the milk case. you could use a sloped shelf. With the slope you'd only need individual cartons for the first, maybe, two rows of the case, after which you could switch to a single block like you're using for the cereal shelves; barring an unusually low shot designed intentionally to expose the cheat, you'd never be able to see the tops of the stuff back there because of the slope and the shelf above.

This is a very interesting point, and very true. Textures are one of the biggest killers to resources, especially GPU rendering. Most of the time geometry isn't much of a concern by comparison. I think this is from years and years of learning the opposite mode of thinking in the gaming community that we have always been taught to lower poly count rather than worry about texture sizes. This was true when CPU rendering was the driving force behind most rendering engines, but now that GPU has taken over and CPU power has increased exponentially, the real concern is limited VRAM and "draw calls" to the GPU.

Triangles from a mesh are sent to the GPU as a draw call each time a new piece of geometry is encountered in the scene. It is much faster for a GPU to transfer a million tris all at once than it is for the GPU to transfer 100 triangles 1000 times. Each draw call means the GPU has to stop, hold, and wait for the slower CPU to transfer scene information to it. This is time-consuming if you have 1000 draw calls happening in a scene. So it can actually be much better to have one object with many triangles than many small objects with fewer triangles of the same overall total when it comes to GPU rendering, and large image textures are usually the main limitation on lower-end cards.

LuxXeon posted at 4:17PM Thu, 30 April 2020 - #4387701

This is a very interesting point, and very true. Textures are one of the biggest killers to resources, especially GPU rendering. Most of the time geometry isn't much of a concern by comparison. I think this is from years and years of learning the opposite mode of thinking in the gaming community that we have always been taught to lower poly count rather than worry about texture sizes. This was true when CPU rendering was the driving force behind most rendering engines, but now that GPU has taken over and CPU power has increased exponentially, the real concern is limited VRAM and "draw calls" to the GPU.

Triangles from a mesh are sent to the GPU as a draw call each time a new piece of geometry is encountered in the scene. It is much faster for a GPU to transfer a million tris all at once than it is for the GPU to transfer 100 triangles 1000 times. Each draw call means the GPU has to stop, hold, and wait for the slower CPU to transfer scene information to it. This is time-consuming if you have 1000 draw calls happening in a scene. So it can actually be much better to have one object with many triangles than many small objects with fewer triangles of the same overall total when it comes to GPU rendering, and large image textures are usually the main limitation on lower-end cards.

Very true! Draw calls hold for textures as well, if you have a bunch of small textures that are always used together, you might be further ahead to combine them into a single sheet; kind of like a "detail" or "trim" sheet. You'll almost certainly hit resource limitations with textures [LONG!] before you'll hit them with raw polygons, especially when it comes to static meshes. Dynamic meshes, stuff that's being deformed, can get a little resource intense but that's more of a processor task than it is a memory sink, and RAM is what you'll likely eat up first anyway.