Seamless UV method - Using Baker

This is my first tutorial, so keep that in mind if things stop making sense.

I had this idea that could help people with big creases in their UV maps that were causing problems. I don't know if there are similar tutorials around but anyway, here we go.

Here we're just going to make a nice UV map for a simple rock.

This is the rock object I'm going with. Good old 15 second modelling.

So for this tut, we're going to select a ring of points at one end of the rock and unweld these points. Now the rock is seperated into two sections.

Then we CREATE a MORPH. Very important. Now we're going to pull out the points on both parts of this object until we have two flat rock pancakes. Make sure that no polys are overlaping.

Now we create a planar UV map of this flattened object.

Then you can delete the morph ('Delete Map' in the Map tab) and then re-weld the points with 'Merge Points'. Now you see why the morph was important, right? I feel those capital letters were justified.

Now we need to make another UV map.

I've used the same method to create this second UV map, but I'm sure you could use Atlas for this second UV map. The vital part for this second UV is that the area of the object we unwelded for the last UV map needs to remain intact for this UV. So if you're using atlas, change all the edges of the first UV map to a different surface name and seperate by surface when creating the Atlas UV, etc. If this doesn't make sense, hopefully it will by the time you finish the tut.

So I'm creating another Planar UV for simplicities sake.

This time, we select the other end of the 'rock' and unweld another ring of points. Then create a SECOND MORPH. Now just spread and flatten the object out. Note that the ring of points we unwelded in the first UV are untouched.

Now we create our 2nd UV map.

Now we delete the 2nd morph and Merge points again.

Okay, now bring up your first UV map and have it showing in the bottom right window of modeler.

Now, export an EPS. (File, Export, Export Encapsulated PostScript) Just export the UV map, no points or grid.

Right. Now it's mostly photoshop.

Open the EPS and create your texture. Make the EPS whatever size you want. I've just splacked a picture of a rock onto the EPS and saved that off. You can add more detail if you wish.

Okay, now we move to layout. Import your object into layout and then import the fantastic Oddworld worthy texture you've just created in Photoshop.

Apply the pic as a UV and apply it to the first UV you created.

Now do a quick render. Good lord, there is a big fat crease! Now we get rid of that crease.

Go back to surface editor and in the Shaders tab add Surface baker.

Now we're going to bake the surface of the entire object using the 2nd UV map we created!

Make the baked image nice and big. You can always resize later on. Follow all the settings in the picture.

Now hit F9. Once it's baked your new texture, open the new image file in photoshop.

Use clone tool to cover up that nasty crease.

Now we go back to layout, apply the new image as your texture map using your 2nd UV map.

Now render off and enjoy your new crease free world.





DaveB 2005