Texturing and Unwrapping

Unwrapping

As part of my advanced 3D concepts model I took on the task of getting all of our models textured and into our final project game “Haven”. I was given model meshes from both the environmental modeler and character molder to unwrap and paint on the textures. As our game is being made in a poly art style we had decided to go with a flat color pallet and really let the lighting in game do the work so the textures applied were purposefully very simple as you will see below.

My first task was to unwrap the environmental models and texture these using Photoshop. The images below show the texture map, and the texture applied to some of the models.

For each model I followed the general approach:

• Remove any pre-existing seams * Tip
• Applied UVW Unwrap modifier
• Draw seams point to point
• Unwrap each sub-section of the model
• Arrange and pack unwrapped segments 
• Render UVW Template to file * Tip
• Collapse the stack (convert back to edible poly) and save file

*Clearing a of model seams

The way I do this is to first convert my model to an editable mesh. Then I go to utilities tab (little image of the hammer), click the more… tab and select UVW remove. Click ok and you should see a parameters box appear on the right panel. Click to remove the UVW and materials. (Sometimes this doesn't work straight away for me so I click each a few times for good measure and it always works) Now remember to convert you mesh back to an editable poly and now when you apply the unwrap modifier there should not be any annoying seams. This is also great if you have made a mess of your unwrap and want to start with a clean slate.

*Rendering UVW Template
I would recommend rendering the template as white wire map on black background as its will make it easy to extract the wire fame into its own layer in Photoshop later. From the UV editor window I select tools, render UVW template. I use the settings; fill: gray, mode: none, edges: white, visible edges and seam edges checked.

Texturing

Once I had the texture map I brought this into Photoshop and I could begin painting on the texture using the map as a guide. Depending on the complexity of the map and art style this can take a varying amount of time.  When the map is painted I save it as an image, can be jpeg, png, bmp etc. Then when I apply this to my model the texture will wrap around it as it was set out in the unwrap.

 Tip

To make the wire frame from the UVW template its own layer, open the image in Photoshop;

• Convert background to a layer
• Click image > adjustments >invert > to invert the colors.
• Click select > Color range > and click anywhere that is white. This will select the entire white background and now you simply hit delete and you are left with the black wire frame.

And that's it! Texturing and coloring a model really brings it to life. Take the little blue guy above as an example, its hard to see how anyone could be drawn to or empathize with him before the big yellow eyes where painted in. But now when people see him in the game we get the "awww" response we where looking for!