3d noobish-ness
Community Forums/General Help/3d noobish-ness
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| I've made some models in Wings 3d, but i don't seem to be able to color them in with Wings. What should i use? Cheers Charlie |
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| Blender! http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro |
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| Any other suggestions? i'm finding Blender extremely frustrating. Cheers Charlie |
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| Blender (if you can get use to the interface) Or if you have the cash Maxon's BodyPaint 3D (I have Cinema 4D and BodyPaint comes with it, If I remember BodyPaint also has limited modeling capabillities (or is it modeling with out animation?). Or Photoshop CS4 Extended. The other downside to these tools other than the cost is lack of good tutorials (unless you are prepared to pay) If you have acess to an application to unwrap the models UV's (e.g. Ulitmate Unwrap) then any photo editing software should do e.g. PaintShop Pro/The GIMP (its just very, very time consuming and results vary) |
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| Having been a max head for years, I'm unable to afford a new 3dsmax, and can really recommend blender - its better than any modelling package till you get to the +£500-1000 range, and while it is quirky, its capable of every single game development need... So really, you will be making a tremendous investment by learning blender (which is free but not a rubbish or cheap free, its a good free). |
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| Ok, so i found i could colour things in via Wings, generating a UV thing and adding colour in paint (or photoshop, but i only need flat colours). i used this, which i found on the web archive:
UV Mapping in Wings 3d
This primer will show how to unwrap and texture a model using Wings 3d and Gimp.
* In Wings select body selection mode (press B key) and select the object you want to skin.
* Right click (RMB) and choose UV Mapping, this will open the UV Editor window.
* RMB in the UV Editor window and choose either 'Segment by > Projection' or 'Segment by > Feature Detection', or select faces and assign AuvChart materials manually. Refer to the Wings manual for details about the different methods.
* If you used one of the two automatic methods above you might want to fine tune the segmentation by assigning AuvChart materials manually, or if you're satified continue to the next step.
* Now it's time to unwrap the different segments onto a two dimensional texture area. RMB and choose either 'Continue > Unfolding' or 'Continue > Projection'. Refer to the Wings manual for an explanation of the two methods.
* The 3d view will now be replaced with a 2d view in the UV Editor window, and the unwrapped segments is layed out automatically. You might want to rearrange them to a better fit in the window by moving, scaling, and rotating the segments just like you would do with regular geometry.
* RMB and choose 'Create Texture' and set the draw options you want.
* Open the Outliner window if not already open. You will notice that a texture normaly called 'diffuse' has been created. Select it, RMB and choose 'Show' to preview. You might want to reiterate the step above to get the draw options you like for the guide drawn in the texture.
* Select the texture in the Outliner, RMB and choose 'Make External' and save it to disk.
* Now fire up Gimp and open the image file you saved in the previous step. Do your best to paint the texture and save your work.
* Switch back to Wings, select the texture in the Outliner, RMB and choose 'Refresh'. The texture will be reloaded from the file and your work will show up in both the UV Editor and Geometry window. You might want to reiterate this and the previous step, swithing back and forth between Gimp and Wings, until you're satisfied with the texture.
* When satisfied; select the texture in the Outliner, RMB and choose 'Make Internal'.
* Now you can export the model to a 3ds file and convert with nscemake, or import it into Blender for rigging and animation.
Generated with Doxygen
Cheers Charlie |
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| Here's a few pointers about UV's. Look for over lapping UV Polys It's a good idea to try and make UV polygons equal in size (not shape) so you don't get distrotions. A trick to use here is to make a checker parttern texture and assign it to your model while unwrapping your UV's The other thing you will come across are seams. This is where UV polygons have no a-joining polys in the UV map and will show notable differences in the texture that is mapped to those UV poly's. One way to get rid of this to hide the seam, that is to unwrap your UV's in such away as to hide the seam in a place that will not be see. Other two methods require software that can alow you to "Projection Paint" and UV Remap. Projection Painting used in Body Paint 3D/ZBrush/Photoshop Extended (and some other hi-end modeling software don't know if Blender can do this) freezes a model in the viewer, alows you to paint then applies what you have painted to the corrisponding UV polys. Remapping (this example is based in BodyPaint I wouldn't know about 3DSMax etc) is storing the current UV map, move the offending UV polys that are causing the seam together. Select the "UV Remap" menu option and when you paint in the joined UV polys your brush strokes will be remapped to where the moved UV polys came from. |
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| I've made some models in Wings 3d, but i don't seem to be able to color them in with Wings. What should i use? I'm a bit of a W3D junkie, so I should be able to help you out. First of all, how intricate does the coloring need to be? If you need distinct patterns or images on your models, then use the UV editor to make your models texture-ready. If you only need to apply solid colors to certain objects or surfaces, though, then no fiddly UV mapping required. Try this mini-tutorial out; oh, and make sure you're using the most recent version of W3D, which is 0.99.04a. First off, we'll make a cube & color it. 1: Create a cube. 2: Enter face selection mode and press Ctrl+A to select all six faces. 3: Right-click to open the Face Operations menu, and select "Material -> New..." 4: Name your new material; anything will do, like "Blue 1" or whatever. The Material Properties window will appear. 5: Set the properties for the material. IMPORTANT - The Diffuse field is what sets the overall color for the material, and will work in Blitz 3D. The other fields, however, which control lighting, opacity, etc., may not affect the model when used in Blitz. 6: Click OK. And you're done! Hit the spacebar to see your beautifully colored cube. That's not all though; you don't have to color an entire object with the same color. You can color individual faces! Let's try it out, using our newly colored cube, or a new one, if you prefer. 1: Still in Face Selection mode, select the top & bottom faces. 2: Again, right-click to bring up the Face Operations menu, select "Material -> New...", and name your new material. 3: Set the Diffuse field to some other color than the rest of the cube. 4: Click OK. That's all! Hit space again to deselect the cube & view the cube. The top & bottom faces will be colored differently from the rest of the cube. When you export it as a .3DS or .X and load it into Blitz 3D, you will see the same colors in their proper places. That's all there is to coloring a mesh in Wings 3D! |
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