I'd appreciate any pointers on the following UVMapper issue. I'm attempting to map a high-rez flattened out photo image of the front & back of a pair of cutoff jeans onto a planar map template (done along the Z axis). The central portion comes out fine, but it looks like the back pockets are squished horizontally when the map is applied to the prop (made from the altered hip, buttocks & abdomen of a morphed Vicky character). It seems to me also that the squishing is minimal at the center of the prop, where the buttocks join & then (looking from the back side toward the front) because the buttocks curve away toward the front of the prop as they approach the left & right edges of the prop, the distortion of the photo as it's applied to the map would have to be low or zero at the center & get progressively more stretched out toward the edges of the map. I realize I can simply bluff my way through this one prop by distorting the image in PhotoShop, which I did do. But I'm doing this as an exercise in fine-tuning my UVMapper & Texture Maps skills to where I can scientifically determine how to take a photo & using some sort of dependable scheme, map that photo against a UVMapper generated template. I've used Steve Cox's find tutorials for basic info on using UVMapper, but have been unable to find anything that discusses these finer mapping issues. The worst areas of this prop are along the junctures of the front & back, where the image (& the map itself) has distortions, so instead of perfectly regular lines I have smudgy lines for the width of a few polygons. If anyone has any tips or can point me to a tutorial, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

UVmapper doesn't have the ability to "Flatten out" the UVs just yet. Maybe it will be a feature of UVmapperPro. Creative mapping is the only solution. Slice the sides off and give then their own map along the X axis.

Also try a cylindrical map

Attached Link: http://home.pb.net/~stevecox/boxtut.htm

Michalki - Something to remember is that a photograph is itself simply a planar projection. Even if you flatten out the facets of the model on the texture map, a single photograph would not be able to take advantage of that. To get the best results, photograph the source from the same direction that you plan to use when rendering the model. Then do a planar projection on the model from the same angle, apply the photograph and render. To get better results from several angles, you can take photographs from 6 directions (front, back, left, right, top and bottom, or 4 sides if you don't care about top/bottom) use box mapping on the model, drop the photographs onto the texture map template and render (the attached link is for a tutorial where I use this technique to model a box, admittedly a best case scenario =) Lastly, you can use the "select by vertex" feature of UVMapper to select and move individual vertices to get the layout exactly how you want it. While this can be tedious, and you'll need to fill in the "spread" facets by hand, the results can be spectacular. Hope this helps, Steve