10-08-2015, 05:05 PM
Most of the issues I have had tend to be... long "bends". I.e., if making something like a Japanese bridge, and "slicing" the parts, even manually (and you definitely don't want to let Wings do this itself, in most cases), you get like a dozen segments that "should" line up, like -----, in a curve, but you end up with... a) it not being actually flat, at all, and b) often with parts "twisted over" each other. You can re-unwrap them, but then you often have to rearrange all the bits on the resulting map, to make room for it (since now its bigger than the unwrapper thought it should be, sometimes even "lapping over the edge" of the texture area).
When it works, it works... mostly OK. When it doesn't, it just goes nuts.
Ah, btw.. Never have worked out how you get a .beam file. This old thread, on the old site:
http://nendowingsmirai.yuku.com/topic/6707
The seventh article includes the "plugin" for baking normals, when generating textures, but either I have no idea how you actually install it (it definitely doesn't show up in the list of plugins when I look), or.. it has to be packed into a .beam somehow to work?
Frankly, I would just as soon do this with Wings 3D, if possible. Blender's interface drives me nuts (too many things you can't do with just a bloody drop menu, including anything involving evmap), and the online tool I found to trying to make things.. well, I sort of end up a different problem. It works, OK, if you have an image, like a bed of rocks, and you are not overly picky about it being exactly right. It.. doesn't work so well on "rendered" objects, which may have reflection/coloration effects which look good to the human eye, but which absolutely don't work right when trying to get a map off them. lol
Trying to get "extra geometry" for what needs to be a mostly "flat" object, basically, using normal maps. I will be importing the result into Second Life, and the more "detail", i.e. vertices, the higher the PE (prim equivalence) you end up with. So, a case, with gemstone it is, optimally, needs to be like 3-4 PE, at most, or a bookshelf the same, but if you actually put in "real" detail, using real surfaces, well.. the book shelf would probably end up being 20, or more PE, and the sales case.. would be even worse. :p
This is the whole core reason for wanting a more stable mapping - so its possible to create a low res object, and map the high res one a texture, to reduce the resource costs to something manageable when importing. lol With things.. a bit broken, and, apparently, this dandy plugin not being install-able anyway.. :p
When it works, it works... mostly OK. When it doesn't, it just goes nuts.
Ah, btw.. Never have worked out how you get a .beam file. This old thread, on the old site:
http://nendowingsmirai.yuku.com/topic/6707
The seventh article includes the "plugin" for baking normals, when generating textures, but either I have no idea how you actually install it (it definitely doesn't show up in the list of plugins when I look), or.. it has to be packed into a .beam somehow to work?
Frankly, I would just as soon do this with Wings 3D, if possible. Blender's interface drives me nuts (too many things you can't do with just a bloody drop menu, including anything involving evmap), and the online tool I found to trying to make things.. well, I sort of end up a different problem. It works, OK, if you have an image, like a bed of rocks, and you are not overly picky about it being exactly right. It.. doesn't work so well on "rendered" objects, which may have reflection/coloration effects which look good to the human eye, but which absolutely don't work right when trying to get a map off them. lol
Trying to get "extra geometry" for what needs to be a mostly "flat" object, basically, using normal maps. I will be importing the result into Second Life, and the more "detail", i.e. vertices, the higher the PE (prim equivalence) you end up with. So, a case, with gemstone it is, optimally, needs to be like 3-4 PE, at most, or a bookshelf the same, but if you actually put in "real" detail, using real surfaces, well.. the book shelf would probably end up being 20, or more PE, and the sales case.. would be even worse. :p
This is the whole core reason for wanting a more stable mapping - so its possible to create a low res object, and map the high res one a texture, to reduce the resource costs to something manageable when importing. lol With things.. a bit broken, and, apparently, this dandy plugin not being install-able anyway.. :p