noxci,
Sorry for the delay. We have been preparing for the Holidays. Ok, here goes:
Origianally, When I was painting my textures I was poly-painting my model. THis has certain advantages, like allowing you to paint over the seams of your UV groups and then convert your poly color to a texture map that you can export. The down side of this is that your texture detail becomes limited to the pixol resolution of your model. For me this was not enough.
In response to your question: there are a couple of settings at the bottom of the “texture” rollout that allow you to adjust the seams of your map when you are wxporting. THere is an “adjust map” button that you can use to shift the map (not exactly sure how this works) and then there is a “map expansion” adjustment that basically takes the edge pixels and expands them outward to correct any gaps in your texture map. I have found this to be very helpful.
As I mentioned, the poly-painting technique was too limiting for the texture resolution that I was trying to acheive, so I am now painting to texture. THis requires a few more steps and some work in Photoshop. THis techniwue is just something that I came up with on my own, so if you come up with anything better please let me know.
My model was set up in Max with UV tiles set into 4 groups: head, torso, arms and hands, and legs and feet. I then brought this into ZB and broke the model/tool into polygroups using the UV groups. THis allows me to isolate the 4 groups for painting and to export a seperate hi-res (4096x4096) texture map for each section.
It goes loke this:
-Isolate a body part group (for this example we’ll say the torso)
-Create a new, blank texture at 4096x4096 (or whatever you want) and apply it to this polygroup.
-Using Projection Master and Zapplink I completely paint this group. The hi-res texture will maintain all of the detail without regard to the models mesh resolution. During this stage I do not worry at all about the seams. Just paint right up to them and make it look how you want it too.
-When I am done painting this polygroup, I adjust the map if necessary (using the controls I mentioned before) to close up any gaps at the seams and export the texture map with a name like “character_diff_torso”
-Do this for each polygroup. For me this meant creating 4 seperate texture maps at 4096x4096’
-Once you have the 4 maps exported, you can imprt them and see that they wil look correct on the body part that they are meant for, but will, of course, look all messed up everywhere else.
-My next step is to paint the texture that will span the seams. For this I use the poly-painting technique. THis DOES mean that the texture resolution is limited to the mesh resolution in the blend areas. For me, this was acceptable because there is very little need for extreme detail in the areas where the torso blends into the arms, legs, and neck.
-Crank your mesh resolution up as high as your computer will allow you without slowing your work to a crawl. For me this was about 3.8 million polys.
-Apply your torso texture map to the model. Now go to the texture rollout (under tools) and hit the Txr>Col (texture to color) button. THis takes your texture map and actually applies the color to the mesh itself. If nothing happens when you do this, make sure you have the RGB button selected under your paint tool settigns (at the top).
-You are now ready to use Projection Master and Zapplink again to paint the blend areas at all of your seams. Try to blend your textures into the map that you had already created for the torso.
-Once you are done with this for all seam areas, you can Isolate a particular polygroup (like the arms) and use the texture rollout to use the col>txr button to convert this poly painting to another hi-res texture map. Export these maps as something like “character_blend_arms”. Do this for each polygroup, including the torso.
-FINAL STEP: Once you have all of these blend maps exported, you simply load the originals in Photoshop, with the blend maps on top of them and use your eraser or masks to hide everything but the blend zone until it looks like you want it to. Save out a flattened version of these for use in your 3D app, and you should have texture maps that blend perfectly.
Sory about the book. I knew this was going to take a lot of explaining, but that was ridiculous! Hopefully it makes sense. Let mekknow if you have any more questions.
E
