Wood edge mapping

[Roodogg]

Hello folks.

 

Wonder if anyone can help me here!

 

I'm trying to map this small wood edge texture around my curved model. (It's a lot of faces) At the moment I am painstakingly selecting each section, uvw mapping, hitting 'normal align', rotating locally and hitting 'fit'. This is obviously taking billions of seconds and I'm sure is unnecessary! Also, when I collapse, the information will probably be lost.

 

Is there a tidy procedural way of doing this?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.[ATTACH=CONFIG]47425[/ATTACH]

Edited April 5, 2012 by Roodogg

[erickdt]

Depending on how you created the shape you might be able to select the edge by selecting that smoothing group. If you made the object by manipulating a plane and adding a shell modifier it should have automatically created a new smoothing group for the newly created edge thickness.

 

E

[Roodogg]

It was originally created as a spine, coverted to edit poly, shelled, and after the mapping, I will apply a TurboSmooth. The question is on how to map a texture around a curved edge. Apologies, I'm not quite understanding your meaning but I managed it anyway! Thanks!

[Scott Schroeder]

You can map based on a spline, or you can flatten out your curved shape in in a UVW Unwrap, either a simple planar map or pelt mapping if you really needed it. Sometimes you can even get away with box mapping a curve like that and not see any sort of strange tiling, and skip the whole UVW Unwrap or mapping from a spline.

 

However, it's easiest to just map the thing before you create the bend. With such a simple shape like the back of a chair all you need to do is create a box, add your shape and detail, get your mapping right, and then finally apply the bend modifier. It saves so many headaches if you map before you create the curve.

 

You will want to apply your turbosmooth, though I don't think it's even necessary and you'll just create more faces that you don't really need, before you map this thing. Turbsosmooth can and usually does distort existing mapping as it subdivides the faces. Especially if you do not have your supporting edges set correctly. Even if you do, mapping still gets screwed up.

 

I suggest you remodel using a box and the bend modifier. You can even stack bend modifiers if you need additional curves.

[Stephen Thomas]

Make a spline that follows the edge profile by connecting a ring of edges then 'create shape' from edit poly. Next add Unwrap UVW modifier, go into face sub-object mode, select your edge faces and choose spline mapping from the wrap rollout. now pick the spline you created and the mapping should follow the spline path.

[Roodogg]

Make a spline that follows the edge profile by connecting a ring of edges then 'create shape' from edit poly. Next add Unwrap UVW modifier, go into face sub-object mode, select your edge faces and choose spline mapping from the wrap rollout. now pick the spline you created and the mapping should follow the spline path.

 

Brilliant. I actually tried this following a ten minute tutorial. I didn't get it from that but managed it from your paragraph. Thanks a bunch.

[Stephen Thomas]

Good to hear!