a few XSI questions

[Nostradamus]

Well, i have modelled my first head model(well the second, but the first one didnt really look like a head...more some reak )

anyways, i would like o try and texture this biatch, and here is my problems...

firstly, how do i fold the model out to 2d, so that i know where to paint the texture(like the middle pic but the grid, if ya know :http://www.stevensart.com/personal-projects/hatchetman/hatchetman1.jpg )

secondly, any good way to make eyes and teeth?

thats it for now i think
Thanks in advance

 

[Nostradamus]

christ stupid edit limit..anyway, the first question...i think it would be more like...how do i create a UV map?

 

[mindless_moder]

can we see your mesh?

 

[softmonkey]

Texturing in a games stylee is really easy in XSI, but hard to encompass in a simple reply...

I will record an AVI to demostrate it. Stay tuned....

James

 

[x84D80Yx]

Originally posted by Nostradamus
Well, i have modelled my first head model(well the second, but the first one didnt really look like a head...more some reak )

anyways, i would like o try and texture this biatch, and here is my problems...

firstly, how do i fold the model out to 2d, so that i know where to paint the texture(like the middle pic but the grid, if ya know :http://www.stevensart.com/personal-projects/hatchetman/hatchetman1.jpg )

secondly, any good way to make eyes and teeth?

thats it for now i think
Thanks in advance

you have to uv-map it to get the "mesh" to fold out to "2d" ...look for some tutorials. (dont take peoples pics off polycount j/k heh )

eyes ...hmm spheres?

teeth? they shouldnt be hard, dont try to make em really 3-d as they are mainly not seen alot unless smiling, so just use like a a rectangle and fold it to the teeth structure, dont make it 3-d. waste of polys.

box modeling seems to be the easiest for me, but then again..i dont really model. ;x

 

[Nostradamus]

thanks for you replys

here is some pics of my model(keep in mid - its my first organic model ever(actually i only did a gun before... and it sucke ):

http://www.juveniles.dk/pics/face22.jpg
http://www.juveniles.dk/pics/face23.jpg
http://www.juveniles.dk/pics/face24.jpg

polycount is 796(tri's)... is this too much/little for a head?

oh and thanks starmonkey, if you will do that avi..could be a lot of help

Thanks again!

 

[Aike]

Righty, lets see if I can explain in a few words a bit about how to go about it till Softmonkey brings on the AVI. In case you are reverted to a gibbering wreck at the end of this, I apologise, its very hard to describe and very easy to show/do

1) apply a shader, such as lambert, phong whatever. reasoning for this is to make it a local material, and not the scene material.

2) get texture > image> point it to your texture, or a white or black picture if you havent made a texture yet. (I'll explain in a bit)

3) in the texture PPG, create a new projection, it doesnt really matter yet what sort, but I would suggest a flat projection straight on the face. (planar XY for example)

4) open your texture editor in one viewport and turn your camera viewport to Texture Decal mode. I generally like to just have the two views open.

5) select all of the points in the texture editor and just slide them to the right OFF the texture.

6) in the camera viewport, select the front of the heads polygons. (i.e. face and forehead). you will see that in the texture editor, it will select them as well.

7) in the textur editor, you will find a button with a plane icon on it labelled 'get new planar subprojection' (or something similar). hit that, select 'best fit' or the axis of your choice, ant the face should be nicely spread out on the texture. scale it to suit, if you are going to use a symmetrical face texture, you can just select half of the samples and flip them horizontally, and then match them on top of the other half, so both halves of the face lie on top of one another. (means you only have to worry about texturing one side of the face, the other will automatically be identical.

8) in the texture editor, you can grab the rest of the samples, or in the camera view some polygons and add a new subprojection. If it is getting messy, you can show selection only in the texture editor. I find a good way to texture a head is to have the head fom the side and the the face 'folded over' so that one half lies on top of the other half from the front. that way I can grab the head after I have placed the face and just have to put a new planar subprojection from the side for those head polys/points.

9) at the end, for those areas where the head is seamed, you need to snap the samples of the various bits together. To do this, you can either select the samples and hit the '+' iconed button in the texture editor, or snap them together manually (guess which is easier). Of course, this actually moves the samples to match on your texture, so see what it does and think a bit about where you can blend and where seams are going to be difficult to conceal.

10) now if you dont have a texture yet, and you are doing this on a black or white background, you can got up into the menu of the exture editor and select stamp UV mesh, which will write out a picture file with the mesh on it so you can load it into photoshop and paint your texture onto it using the mesh as guidelines.

11) at this point because I have utterly confused you...wait for softmonkey to post a link to an AVI and watch that, whereby all shall become clear.


Cheers,
Aike

 

[Nostradamus]

thank you so much for taking the time Aike!

I think i understand the thing about you have to flotten it out and how, but from that and until the buttom i didnt quite get, but it's late and im going to bed, and ill read it through again tomorrow...so thank you so much!

and thank you beforehand Softmonkey

 

[Nostradamus]

ok i have a problem

I got to the boint where i have to make the face flat(planar subprojection) adn well, when i do that, a lot of lines from the rest of the face follows!!

 

[Jaenos]

I skimmed over some of the thread, now call me insane, but in your first post it already looks like the guy is unwrapped, I mean the face is textured, hence uvs are layed out?

Looks like all the work is done, unless you somehow miraculously did that without the texture editor(in which case I really can't comprehend on how, hehe)

 

[Nostradamus]

well, it sjust and example of what i wanted to be done

 

[Jaenos]

Ah, that makes sense.

Did you figure out everything you needed to with the texture editor? As the last post you were wondering why you could see the points behind the head as well.

If not, you just start to pull them to spread them out; yes it's boring, but that's unwrapping for you.


There are a couple ways around this, however, since it's for a game, it's just more proper to unwrap it like that. However, you could easily make a planar projection incorperating the front of the face, and then subproject the side of the head, then the top of the head, and use a method of using alpha layers to blend the two textures... however this is usually only done in higher end cg.

 

[Razorwolf]

Aike's explanation should be added to a sticky full of handy mini-tutorials

 

[Aike]

Originally posted by Jaenos
Ah, that makes sense.

Did you figure out everything you needed to with the texture editor? As the last post you were wondering why you could see the points behind the head as well.

If not, you just start to pull them to spread them out; yes it's boring, but that's unwrapping for you.


There are a couple ways around this, however, since it's for a game, it's just more proper to unwrap it like that. However, you could easily make a planar projection incorperating the front of the face, and then subproject the side of the head, then the top of the head, and use a method of using alpha layers to blend the two textures... however this is usually only done in higher end cg.

Hey hey...sorry for the delay in response...been downright busy of late here.

OK one thing here... Jaenos, you are essentially right... BUT...

...XSI doesnt have this limitation The beauty of using subprojections in the texture editor is that you can add new projections for polygon groups but they all remain in the same UV set. Subproject the top, side, however you want and it will all be hunkydory without needing to alpha blend two textures. Just snap the bordering samples and you dont even need to blend.

Confucious says: Think about how you are going to unwrap BEFORE you are halfway through, or you will recieve big headache and much entanglement of UVs.

Cheers,
Aike

 

[Nostradamus]

could you answer my question further up Aike.. im not quite sure yet...

 

[Jaenos]

True Aike, you can connect the the side projects with the front easily using the heal tool(the little medical looking plus sign) however, you still need to pull the points, and honeslty by connecting two sub projections I haven't gotten anything too accurate and spent just as much time pulling the points so they can be slightly correct. And of course everything will always have a seam in the back of the head.

 

[hl2_mods]

Hey Nostradamus!!!!

Is that EXP? The free version or did you pay the huge fee for the license?
I don't see any watermarks so I guess is has to be either XSI Advanced which is $11,000 plus a $2400.00 annual maintenance fee or the essential which is around 6 grand I think.

 

[Aike]

Originally posted by Jaenos
True Aike, you can connect the the side projects with the front easily using the heal tool(the little medical looking plus sign) however, you still need to pull the points, and honeslty by connecting two sub projections I haven't gotten anything too accurate and spent just as much time pulling the points so they can be slightly correct. And of course everything will always have a seam in the back of the head.

not necessarily.

If you assume the texture is a plastic bag you are putting over the head of the model, you can either cut it open and spread it out, or exactly in the middle flatten the two sides on top of each other. that way both sides are identical (differences can be created my moving samples) and you have no seam.

Of course the limitation is that you have a perfectly symmetrically textured face. In general, the idea with the subprojections is to allow you to find a place where the seam can either be most easily concealed or most easily blended and put it there. (gotta love the clone tool in photoshop)

Although you DO have to pull points a lot to adjust things, the heal tool will show you where the samples connect and do it for you... a big time saver. It also will keep the samples healed afterwards, so you can shift the entire subprojection around.

Nost, try hitting the show selection only button, and make sure vertex and poly bleeding is off (and that proportional modelling is off). Presumeably whats happening is you are pulling the samples with their neighbors (thats what it sounds like).

Cheers,
Aike