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Practical texturing issues

Started by g May 12, 2003 at 10:28 AM 4 replies 850+ views

Original Post

May 12, 2003 at 10:28 AM

What are the best ways to fit textures to models such as space ships? I want to be able to detail the whole hull as I like, so repeating metal textures and the like are not sufficient. At the moment I am manually constructing flattened ''nets'' for the surface of a hull and drawing the texture onto that. With the right texture co-ordinates, the net is wrapped around the 3D model. This is a lot of work and results in quite a lot of wasted texture space and duplicated vertices. Also, for larger models I''m not sure if a single 256x256 texture will provide enough detail, or whether I should use 2 or more such surfaces. Do other people use this approach, or is there a better way? thanks in advance

James Trotter

May 12, 2003 at 3:11 PM

You could use one large texture stretched across the model... say 512x512. And then add a detail texture. look at www.gametutorials.com

May 12, 2003 at 3:49 PM

Yes, but the problem is really in the ''stretching'' process. The task of working out how to wrap the texture around the model well is difficult and then getting all of the texture co-ordinates right is very time consuming. Also I think it will get much worse when I try to make larger, more detailed models than the prototypes I have done so far.

I might try to write a program to do it for me (hard!). Any thoughts?

James Trotter

May 13, 2003 at 2:53 PM

Are you thinking of hard-coding all the coordinates?

Go get a modelling program like Milkshape3D, (www.milkshape3d.com), and import it into your program...

May 13, 2003 at 6:56 PM

I''m using a modified .obj format at the moment, which means I can construct the shape of a model in various programs, but all the non-standard bits (perhaps unnecessarily most of the texture system at the moment, plus billboarded lights...) have to be added manually to the file. This isn''t a problem when the number of changes is small, which is increasingly not the case.

I could add support for more standard methods, or for a different format, but I''m only going to do that if I can find a program which really helps me. I used a version of Milkshape a while ago, but it''s texture coordinate editor didn''t impress me.

Alternatively, I could try to devise my own system to generate nets and texture co-ordinates. This would be challenging (I''ve seen it done badly), but is potentially a project for my uni course.

I''m not sure what quality of results to expect either way. How much wasted space is normal in textures? What about duplicated vertices (vertices that need multiple texture co-ordinate alternatives) - can I expect to have to do this to many of my vertices, or just a few?

Namethatnobodyelsetook

May 13, 2003 at 9:00 PM

Your best answers for this would come from asking in an art forum, rather than a programming forum. Artists have to deal with UVs all the time and would be best at pointing out which programs and methods work best.

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