Texturing a Wings 3D model (in or outside Blitz)

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/Texturing a Wings 3D model (in or outside Blitz)

joerae(Posted 2004) [#1]
Hi there. I've been using Wings 3D to create models to use with Blitz, and it's all well and good. Ultimately I want to apply a few textures to these models and use them in Blitz3d.

I realise Wings3D doesn't have texture mapping built in, but is there any way I can assign textures to specific faces? Is this something to do with UV mapping?

Also, my flatmate has an unregistered copy of 'Ultimate Unwrap'. Would this do the job? Whenever I try to load an exported .3ds file from wings, it says 'Model has no UV coordiantes'.

Now I know there's a UV assigning thing in Wings, but I have no idea how it works. Is there any simple way to bypass this? Is there some free texture mapping software? Can I use some command in Blitz (that isn't to tricky) to select a group of faces, adn texture them?

Any help would be appreciated.


joerae(Posted 2004) [#2]
Okay, I've figured it out a bit more now.

Contrary to inital impression, Wings3D CAN texture, and put these out in it's 3ds export.

To do this, go file-> import image to load your texture.

Then in FACE mode, you can select it's material. However, I still can't get into the bitmaps it makes for the unfolded UV maps, but that's not a Blitz problem. Since I can do the first think, I guess I don't need any help on selecting faces within a mesh in Blitz3d


joerae(Posted 2004) [#3]
for those that are interested, there's a great guide to UV mapping in wings HERE:

http://neoengine.emedia-solutions-wolf.de/neoengine-api/html/WingsUVMapping.html


jhocking(Posted 2004) [#4]
"Also, my flatmate has an unregistered copy of 'Ultimate Unwrap'. Would this do the job? Whenever I try to load an exported .3ds file from wings, it says 'Model has no UV coordiantes'."

A 'Model has no UV coordinates' message is normal since you didn't assign any UV coordinates. You can't use the unregistered version of Ultimate Unwrap because it is save-disabled, but I highly recommend purchasing. It doesn't cost that much and has MANY features that are very useful for game development in general and Blitz in particular. If you really don't want to spend any money the free precursor to Ultimate Unwrap, Lithunwrap, is available if you search on google. But again, I highly recommend purchasing Ultimate Unwrap.

ADDITION: By the way, in a big coincidence I just gathered a bunch of screenshots for a tutorial on modeling in Wings and then texturing that model using Lithunwrap. I don't know if I am going to write the tutorial after all, but if I do I'll post it in the Art Tutorials forum.