General Question "Unwrapping" ships to texture/repaint

[PhantomCruiser]

I actually couldn't think of a better word than unwrap, but here goes.

I've noticed that the stock shuttle, shuttle-A, DG (and family) etc. have their texture laid out flat (which I understand), but they have multiple parts of the texture, representing different geographic locations of the mesh, all on one single texture file (for example MGAtlantis.dds). Or the repaint kits available for the various XR-x models.

How is that done, or rather how can I accomplish the same thing?

I've dug around here and elsewhere looking for a tutorial/walk-through or something. But I either can't find it, or am using the wrong terminology.

 

[jedidia]

Unwrap is actually the technically correct term for what you want to do. Modelling programs come with a UV-unwrapper, which allows you to map the faces of your model to coordinates on a 2-dimensional plane, i.e. to pixels on an image file.

How capable that tool is and where it's located depends entirely on the modelling program you are using. You'll be best off to search for it in the manual.

 

[PeriapsisPrograde]

It's called UV mapping. Each traingle on the mesh corresponds to a certain place on the texture. The triangles DO NOT need to line up on the texture in the same sort of way they do on the the mesh; on the mesh in 3D they are all connected, but on the 2D UV map they are not. So, you can just place them willy nilly all over the place on the texture. That allows you to reuse a part of the texture for multiple triangles.

The UV maps are stored in the .msh file, but I don't know of any programs that can just rip the map for you.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Thanks guys! I'm still using anim8tor at the moment, but I have a copy of Blender and Wings 3d. Learning how to use them though is causing me to lose touch with time (and maybe pull out my hair).

I did print a Wings 3d manual from their website (100+ pages) and there's a Blender noob to pro e-book I've got bookmarked, so I'll continue to study and learn.

 

[jedidia]

I have a copy of Blender

Getting a copy of Blender is the easy part... :compbash2:

 

[marooder86]

Here is a short video tutorial showing what UV unwraping is all about. It's for Blender but you can still get general idea of how it's done.
As for starting point to learn using Blender this series of video tutorials will quickly get you in the basics.