texturing issues

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pincushionman
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texturing issues

Post by pincushionman »

I'm working on a heavy bomber and am running into some issues about texturing it. Here's a picture so you can see what I've got so far:

Image

It's obviously not textured yet, and that's where I'm having problems. The AutoUV tool included with Wings3d is not working for me:

1) I can't orient the face groups the way I want them. It guesses wrong about how I want the groups oriented, and the rotation tool in the AutoUV window is not accurate enough for me to get the right lines horizontal and vertical.

2) The newest version of Wings3d has eliminated the ability to export an image file to use as a template for texturing the mesh. I really don't want to have to guess where my face groups are.

I've tried the ExtremeUV plugin as well, but that doesn't even give me the correct number of faces.

Is there a (free or cheap) texturing tool or modeling program that offers me more freedom and control over the UV mapping? I was looking for Texturizer, but I can't find it anywhere.

Also, I want to implement multiple LOD's, but I don't know how to do that. Could someone post on how that is done?

And finally, while we're discussing my ship, I need some help naming it. I was thinking of calling it the "porcupine," but I'm not sure if that sounds good or not. So I translated "porcupine" into some other languages -- let me know what souds best to you all:

porcupine [english]
kakwchak [(actually, porcupine people) some native American tongue]
Kita'mi [Menominee]
heskovestse [cheyenne]
hoho'i [O'odham]
tsu-tsa-ya-s-ti u-ne [Cherokee]
Matues [Listuguj (Mi'kmaq), Malliseet]
Kahe'ta' [Mingo]
Ago [Potawatomi]

If anyone has any other native american words for this animal, please let me know! I'm currently leaning heavily toward "Ago".

-Pincushionman
Conquer space!
-pincushionman

---------------------------------------

Kansas really is flatter than a pancake!
http://www.improbable.com/airchives/pap ... ansas.html
dandandaman
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Post by dandandaman »

well.....my internet connection is being crappy (by some lucky coincidence, the only site I am able to view is Vegastrike! :-)

so I can't see the picture, but if it looks mean, maybe echidna is a better animal (its spikes look more nasty)? (echidna == marsupial thingo with spikes)

Dan.a
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Post by hellcatv »

that's a beautiful shiP! even with a half-decent texture it would make a fine addition to Vega Strike--hopefully it can have a nice reflection map and some glow and a damage map so we can have our newest ships have these features
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enlightenment
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Re: texturing issues

Post by enlightenment »

pincushionman wrote:Is there a (free or cheap) texturing tool or modeling program that offers me more freedom and control over the UV mapping? I was looking for Texturizer, but I can't find it anywhere.
You can try UVMapper but be aware that it's an external tool. It doesn't integrate into Wings or have any facility to export to the VS mesh format. To use it you'll have to export your mesh from Wings, run it through UVMapper, then use the VS texturizer to convert the mesh into VS format.
zaydana
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Post by zaydana »

Kita'mi is my favourite out of all them... and including echidna. But yeah... echidna would be better anyways cos its Australian =)

Awesome ship, btw.
V4X3N Being Lazy

Hey Zaydana!

Post by V4X3N Being Lazy »

You surfaced... well, a couple questions for ya:
1: You proposed a 3D interface for wandering around bases and planets and such, is it still happening?
2: You also proposed a personnel interface for controlling ships and such, is that happening?
3: If either of the above is happening, can I have a thread for each in features, so I can put it in the feature-requests FAQ?
Thanks.
pontiac
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Re: texturing issues

Post by pontiac »

pincushionman wrote:1) I can't orient the face groups the way I want them. It guesses wrong about how I want the groups oriented, and the rotation tool in the AutoUV window is not accurate enough for me to get the right lines horizontal and vertical.
Yeah, that's sometimes a bit frustrating, but the UV-Plugin is currently under HEAVY development, so there will be more and more features with time.
2) The newest version of Wings3d has eliminated the ability to export an image file to use as a template for texturing the mesh. I really don't want to have to guess where my face groups are.

I've tried the ExtremeUV plugin as well, but that doesn't even give me the correct number of faces.
The import export has been moved to the RMB-menu in the 3D-window. You can then drag and drop it from the outliner to the uv-window.
Look at this thread in the wings forum:
http://pub33.ezboard.com/fnendowingsmir ... 1639.topic
And it's also described in the Texturing Howto
Also, I want to implement multiple LOD's, but I don't know how to do that. Could someone post on how that is done?
The easiest way to do LOD is to make a very low-poly ship and then smooth it (EDIT: the whole ship or only some faces; several times if needed; also the use of hard-edges is recommended).
The big advantage of this method is you don't have to make the UV-map a secont time because wings3D also smoothes the UVdata.
And finally, while we're discussing my ship, I need some help naming it. I was thinking of calling it the "porcupine," but I'm not sure if that sounds good or not. So I translated "porcupine" into some other languages -- let me know what souds best to you all:

...

If anyone has any other native american words for this animal, please let me know! I'm currently leaning heavily toward "Ago".
My favorites are
Kita'mi
Ago
and of course
Pincushionship

Pontiac
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Post by Duality »

I used wings3D V0.98.08e for wings 3d.

Don't use the newer version. Even when you try to export in the outliner window, it closes on you for no reason.
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Post by pontiac »

That's the reason why it (V0.98.08e) pretends to be stable ;-)

Pontiac
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Re: texturing issues

Post by Shrike »

pincushionman wrote:porcupine [english]
kakwchak [(actually, porcupine people) some native American tongue]
Kita'mi [Menominee]
heskovestse [cheyenne]
hoho'i [O'odham]
tsu-tsa-ya-s-ti u-ne [Cherokee]
Matues [Listuguj (Mi'kmaq), Malliseet]
Kahe'ta' [Mingo]
Ago [Potawatomi]

If anyone has any other native american words for this animal, please let me know! I'm currently leaning heavily toward "Ago".

-Pincushionman
I'm curious where you got these translations?

I ask because the Tsalagi (Cherokee in english) doesn't look right to me. I don't know the tsalagi word for porcupine, but just looking at the word the way you posted it here, I would think that the animal's name would be the part before the "ya".

As an example, the guy who created the tsalagi written lanquage, referred to as the "syllibary" (the tsalagi were the only one of the 500 Nations to have a written language) was named "say-qua-ya" (Sequoia in english). "Say-qua" being the tsalagi word for pig, and "ya" being something like a cross between "keeper of" and "where it lives". The literal english translation of say-qua-ya being either "keeper of pigs" or "pig sty".

[Most native american languages also combined pitch with the words. For instance, the tsalagi word for "hello" is ah-si-oh, and if you raise the pitch of that last "oh" when you say it, it changes from "hi" to "hi, I'm happy to see you!".]

Thus, from my very limited knowledge of tsalagi, I would suspect that the actual name for the animal might be "tsu-tsa", rather than tsu-tsa-ya-s-ti u-ne. I've been wrong before though.

As for my personal preference, that ship definately looks like a "Heskovestse Mark 1" to me.

(I say Mark 1 since it doesn't really look much like a porcupine, and I suspect that you will end up making another ship later which has more prickly things sticking out of it, and you might want to name it a Mark 2).
pincushionman
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Post by pincushionman »

My reasons for asking for help on the name were twofold: It doesn't look spiny, so I wanted something that sounded cool without implying it looked like a porcupine (in keeping with my handle, though, all my ships will have names of various spiny creatures, at least until I run out of those names) and I wasn't sure if my sources on the native american words would be accurate. Thanks for all your help so far!

Enlightenment, you mentioned I would need Texturizer to use your technique...where can I get it?

And I get the need for several meshes to do LOD -- but how do you set up the xunit file to use them properly?

Thanks for your help everyone!

-Pincushionman
Conquer space!
-pincushionman

---------------------------------------

Kansas really is flatter than a pancake!
http://www.improbable.com/airchives/pap ... ansas.html
dandandaman
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I like.....

Post by dandandaman »

well, now that I've seen the ship I have to say 1) it looks great :-) and 2) it looks more like an echidna than a porcupine (with the big nose thing happening)...

that said I like best the name Kahe'ta' :-)

Dan.a
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