What mapping tool?

Community Forums/Developer Stations/What mapping tool?

mag.(Posted 2005) [#1]
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I found this map image and wonder what tool its use to create it. This image is come with a model. The model look so perfect (although its a low polygon) in this map, but with good image mapping its so real. And there is no obvious tile.

Looking to the image I believe its not manually create. Its must be some kind of UV/ 3d painting program that apply mapping on it automaticlly. Anyone have any idea...


semar(Posted 2005) [#2]
Unwrap3D ?


Mustang(Posted 2005) [#3]
Mmmm... IMO that's quite bad UV-mapping, at least for game (real-time) use. Lot's of (wasted) empty space in the map and the map isn't square or even (power of two) rectangular. And it would be impossible to edit that texture manually using PhotoShop. To me it looks like automated / baked / generated mappings made by what-ever un-wrapper / baker, bit like how you would bake normal maps from hi-res to lo-res model UV-map.


Uber Lieutenant(Posted 2005) [#4]
I don't have a clue what tool was used to make that, but if someone named it I'd be sure to avoid it entirely. That's just NOT how you should do skinning or UV-mapping on models. Ack.


Barliesque(Posted 2005) [#5]
You guys are missing the point. This UV map is obviously the result of an automatic process, which has made it so weird. But the important thing is that the resulting 3D model is so impressive, that Mag wants to find what created it. Mapping a human form is extremely troublesome, and certainly doesn't work perfectly with cylindrical/spherical projections. Frankly, it doesn't matter in the slightest what the texture image looks like if the final result looks stunning.

Having said that, the one thing that does bother me about the image is the dimensions: 747x498 ...Fortunately, Blitz does convert non-square and non-power-of-two textures automatically. But a loss of quality is inevitable.

@Mag: What did this image come from? If it's from a piece of commercial software, then chances are it was made with an in-house piece of software. What format is the model itself?

Unwrap3D would not produce results like this--those standardised mapping modes all create distortion of texel density, of which there appears to be *none* in this image.


mag.(Posted 2005) [#6]
@Mag: What did this image come from? If it's from a piece of commercial software, then chances are it was made with an in-house piece of software. What format is the model itself?


A free model demo from commercial site. Can't remember where I download it.

For me, this model is perfect because its use real image texture (from photo) but warping to the model in no obvious tile. That I think is very clever mapping tool. Its just like real (No obvious hand drawn). Look here..
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I think it must be a 3d painting program(like tattoo) but probably have more advance Clone stamp tool, that the source of stamp is from another file (not from the same mapping as in tattoo. Don't judge me, I love tatoo. Its the best of what I know).

And I agree it's UV-mapping not in a proper way (for easy editing). Its could be better. Unwrap3D is better in doing UV-mapping for image map editing.

This model look great because of the way it create the image map.

I download several 3d painting tool and still trying to figure it out.


AdrianT(Posted 2005) [#7]
looks like deeppaint autoUVmapping, if you just click the most basic automatic method. the problem with that kind of mapping though, is that its nearly impossible to make sense of whats what if you try and touch it up by hand in photoshop. And even in deep paint, if you try and touch it up you will probably be fighting horrid jaggy seams.

Deep paint 3D is a great tool, but you still need to spend some good time setting up your mapping before you can expect to get good clean results that don't wasted UV space.


jfk EO-11110(Posted 2005) [#8]
If it's using Photos to create a 3d model and map it with the photos, it may be "Photomodeller" or "dsculptor" or something.


Bob3d(Posted 2005) [#9]
Edited: Too much long post....

Basicly: 2d school skinning imho is the way to go, though helps a lot having 3d painting, like deep paint3d, or Tatoo. But while it's ok to paint 2d only, I wouldn't recomend 3d painting-only....