How am I performing UV Unwrapping wrong?

[anon_34015336]

I’ve spend quite literally the last 4 hours trying to export a fairly simple model from Google SketchUp, then use 3DS Max to perform some magic UV Unwrapping so I can nicely get around 10 different materials into a single PNG file. It seems to have worked a few times in the past hundred attempts or so, but I’ve always experienced difficulty when I add the windows of the boat (my model).

I have my render settings as follows:

I’ve tried setting up my own ‘Unwrap UVW’ modifier, channels 1, 2 and 3 (1 seems to be awfully low detail), using both existing and generated channels, texture sizes and so forth. I’ve also tried rendering it with the windows being a seperate mesh, part of the mesh and even without them but they don’t seem to change the result.

As you can see this is what the boat is meant to look like…

And this is what it becomes.

And finally, my UV result.

Please excuse the amount of images, I just don’t know how to explain it and I’m exhausted after 4 strenuous hours of failing to resolve this myself. If anyone could enlighten me on a possible solution I’d be very thankful as I’m very eager to resume work on my project which I’ve had much progress on so far. I’d rather not have to output a game where all objects have a single repeating texture layer.

[anon_1014682]

Make sure you have 1 material, 1 UV channel and the UVs are between 0,0 and 1,1 (unless you want to tile them)

Since you’ve not shown the UVs overlayed on the texture, is it assigned to the right material to be exported?

[Schlumpfsack]

you render the texture into the second UV channel. I think that is your problem, but i am not sure.

[anon_34015336]

Well I’m fairly new to this process so I’ll just quote here the steps that I followed:

1. Create your model and texture it in 3D Studio. Your model should be fully textured. If you want to bake in lighting, lit before you start the rest of these steps.

2. Go to “Rendering → Render Texture” in 3DS Max (or hit 0.)

3. Make sure the item is selected in 3DS Max, it should appear under the “Objects to Bake List.”

4. Under “Output” pick where you want to export your file. Make sure “Rendered Frame Window” is checked so you can see what your texture looks like when it is created.

5. Now scroll down to “Output” You need to click the “Add” button at the bottom of the list. If you know a lot about 3D, pick the texture type you want to create. If you know nothing about 3D like me, and just want flat colors, pick the “Diffuse” option. This should add the map to the output list above.

6. Click on the “…” after “File Name and Type” Use maximum quality PNG as your save format.

7. Select Black for your Element Background, and pick a texture size that you think is high enough. If you are creating an iPhone game, do not make a texture bigger than 1024x1024. For my run-of-the-mill objects I use 256x256 which is fine unless the player gets very close to the object.

8. If you want Lighting or Shadows on your texture, check those off. I leave that up to Unity since most of my 3D objects are not static, so I don’t check those.

9. The rest of the settings I leave as-is. Click the “Render” button in the bottom left of the box. If all went well, you should now see a flat texture of your model pop up on the screen.

10. Now close the render to texture screen and open your Materials Window (M). Select an empty material and click the gray button next to Diffuse. Select “Bitmap” and then find the baked texture. You should now see your baked texture on the material. Now back to your model…

11. There will be a new Modifier on your model. It’s called Automatic Flatten UVs. Change the Map Channel on this to 1. Then collapse this to your mesh. You can make sure the map is correct by unwrapping the UVW Map with the Unwrap UVW Map modifier. The map should comply to the baked texture.

12. Now drag your imported texture to your Model’s Map Channel 1. Do a test render, and the model should now appear correctly with texture.

13. Export this model as FBX, and import it into Unity. Everything should now be in place!

Source: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/16590/3ds-max-unity-the-best-way-to-import-a-multi-sub-object-material

What I got a little confused at is near the end, at step 11 and 12. I’m not sure what it means with ‘collapsing’ the modifier to my mesh.

As for step 12, I didn’t do this as I’m not sure what it means. The material editor interface for 3DS Max 2011 is very different than its previous versions and am not sure where to find the map channel to drag this texture on to.

I assume I’m doing something right considering the render in 3DS max shows up alright. If I’m not I’d love to be corrected.

[Schlumpfsack]

see picture
i guess/hope this will fix your problem.

[subvertio]

I just posted a quick tut…check it it out at:

Unwrap a tank in 3ds Max 2010 - Part 1

[pat_sommer]

did you re export your boat and import back into unity, the render to texture sometimes makes a different UV setup. try reimporting your boat and applying the new texture

[subvertio]

learning to unwrap appropriately takes time - if it was EASY everyone would be doing it.

[Fourthings]

Just a modeling tip, if you bevel those very hard edges you have with a very small subtle bevel the model will look far better, it will increase vert count though. This is a common mistake you see amongst people relatively new to modeling. Edges in the real world are nowhere near as sharp as in the virtual world, which is why we bevel them. Unwrapping in Maya is very easy just fyi.

[Fourthings]

Oh, I just noticed, make sure you have no tiling set on your image/shader in Unity, it appears to be tiling the map over your model.

[anon_34015336]

Thanks for the help guys. I found out the reason my texture was not properly being placed onto the model was because I was exporting it without the ‘materials’ checked. Little did I know that this contained the map channel settings. I still don’t know why map channel 1 results in a low quality look, but using map channel 3 does the trick. Thanks for the tip about bevel too by the way, I’ll give that a try!

[pat_sommer]

the low quality look may be in your texture settings in the inspector, select your texture file in the unity assets pannel. in the inspector youll see it says compressed under format. if you change that to truecolor it makes it exactly your what your texture file looks like