DeleD Community Edition

monkeyface · Member Joined: 17 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Hello! I've been using DeleD for some days now, and even though I've ran into some bugs and crashes, I still find it really useful for a number of reasons.

There's one thing though that I can't wrap my head around. There's this road that I'm trying to UV texture, it's not a straight road, but a curved one. This only results in distorted textures and salty tears. Here's a picture of what I mean:

Would it be possible to come up with a satisfactory solution to this, without turning to a different program?

chronozphere · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 5:20 pm Post subject:

Try this:

> Select the faces in face mode
> Click Gen UV
> Check "fit texture size to face"
> Hit OK

This should basicly do the trick. If it still doesn't look that right, you can always edit it manually and get rid of the glitches.

monkeyface · Member Joined: 17 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

That's what I did before, and the picture that I posted is the result of "untangling" them. This is how it looks just by checking the "fit texture size to face" option:

chronozphere · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 5:43 pm Post subject:

Hmm.. too bad it doens't work as expected.

Maybe you could take the vertices and put them all on the corners of the "texture rectangle" in the UV editor. That makes sure that the entire texture is visible on each face. Make sure you put the right vertices in the right corners, otherwise the road get's flipped over at certain points. Smile

These things can get quite tedious. That's why I started working on a UV-mapping plugin that will drasticly speed up the texturing workflow by introducing some extra UV tools. Unfortunatly I don't think it will be finished soon. Stay tuned though. Wink

monkeyface · Member Joined: 17 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Are there any ways to make them "snap" to the corners? That's basically what I tried the first time, but maybe it'd work better if I were more precise. I can't really understand why this doesn't have an obvious solution, isn't this software mostly for independent or freelance game artists? A road is a must in every urban environment! The road to victory is paved with seamless textures. Well, thank you anyways, I'll be watching out for that plugin of yours.

Mr.Fletcher · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:35 pm Post subject:

monkeyface · Member Joined: 17 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Tried it just now. I used a guide for the road, and in the end I snapped it all to the grid to keep it symmetric and nice. Still those strange "starfish" stretchings.

Am I out of options?

elementrix · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:02 pm Post subject:

your using way to few segments for the turns, you need to try and keep faces as square as possible, this can only be achieved in very slight turns and is very hard to do in these.

A way to solve it in this case is by choosing one point to start, take for example the most left edge, this edge goes straight onto the left or right side of your UV map, then the face is mapped the same way as it is in 3D space, then for the next face again choose the first edge, and map it the same as it is in 3D, continue this for each face and you will have a better looking road, not perfectly seamless though.

you could also try to divide your road into more segments so your road is for example 3 poly's wide, then in the turn the outer poly's will stay pretty close to their square shape, and the inner poly's you will have to map as I explained.

EDIT:

monkeyface · Member Joined: 17 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

The problem with that solution is I have to be VERY low poly. It's for a certain game, and more than 1000 polys in each room would really be pushing it.

I'm sorry, the second explanation I don't quite understand. Though it seems to me that the method you're proposing is quite time-consuming (there'll be a long road) and not completely seamless. Should I go search for a plug-in or another program?

elementrix · Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:33 am Post subject:

monkeyface · Member Joined: 17 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Oh, I must've not submitted the reply. Well, here it goes again.

My estimation of 1000 polys may not be too far off then, if the DS can do 2000, and the DS is a souped up version of the N64...
We're a group of people who hack the 1997 game Goldeneye, www.goldeneyevault.com. We're creating custom maps, and to be sure it works with both emulator and possibly the original console, we have to keep it rather low poly. That includes 32*64/32*32 textures.

I see what you're getting at. But I'm sure there have to be SOME specialized software who can do this, even if I realize it's not your everyday UV mapping. I added some polygons to the road, and it's not as stretched then, but still not "perfect". Also, for the second try I used a cylinder as a guide, I think that may also have had some effect.

This is the preliminary solution. We'll see how it goes.

elementrix · Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:29 pm Post subject:

see how mario kart 64 did it, most of the tracks have very long turns, if your level is a city or street, what about making cross-roads and not really adding very sharp turns?

and yes, tracing of a cilinder is much better, there are no perfect road UV's, even if you are going to use to specialized software for roads, they will just add more geometry to make it look better.
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Dragonsbrethren · Member Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 21

I was going to suggest abandoning the road textures, and just using one of the generic asphalt textures plus a secondary layer or vertex coloring for the various markings. It looks like you already came to that conclusion though.

elementrix: That's what GoldenEye did originally, any area that used these road textures simply connected them at 90 degree angles. It was kind of lame in hindsight, but I didn't take issue with it back then.

monkeyface · Member Joined: 17 Jun 2009 Posts: 11

Glad to see you could make it to the party, DB!
While it'd look better with a generic asphalt texture at this turn, most of the road will be straight, and I think it'd look better with the road texture. It wouldn't be as monotonous, as the road will be long.

Here's another try, just by rotating and scaling the islands. I think it worked out okay.