UV Unwrapping or another method?

[CraigMenne]

I have a somewhat simple chair that I have been working on. Now I got the modeling part down find, but as I was following some texturing tutorials to help me learn that I came across the issue that when I tried to apply the wood texture that is the case this time, it just shows as a solid color.

I figured it had something to do with the UV maps so I applied the basic UV Map modifier inside of 3ds max and tried all the presets on there and I cant seem to get anything to work right.

 

Now I guess my question is, would the correct course of action be to unwrap the chair legs? Or is there another method that you guys use to speed the process faster? Unwrapping is an area that I am sorely lacking in, so I am unsure of all the subtleties that can come with this area of 3ds max.

 

Below is an image of the leg in question. Its got two iterations of turbosmooth on it right now, would it matter much if I unwrapped the unturbosmoothed model? Or would I have to do it with the turbosmooth? Or as I asked before, is there a better method I dont know about?

 

I wanted to add an image of the chair leg as I have it modeled, but I cant seem to get it to upload I keep getting an error 500 message or something.

[Tommy L]

a simple cylindrical UVW map would be fine for the legs. You apply the UVW map above or below the turbosmooth mod, doesnt matter. If you unwrap, its best to do that directly on a mesh, then smooth after unwrapping.

[CraigMenne]

a simple cylindrical UVW map would be fine for the legs. You apply the UVW map above or below the turbosmooth mod, doesnt matter. If you unwrap, its best to do that directly on a mesh, then smooth after unwrapping.

 

Thanks for the information

 

Also, it turns out part of the problem was I was using real world scale for the bitmap as well (this was intended) though I was not clicking that option in the UV map rollout though. Therefore the solid colors I believe. Now that I have that clicked it appears to be working a bit better.

[CraigMenne]

I have applied the basic cylindrical mapping and after a few more changes that I missed before (didnt see the real world mapping option on the UVW map modifier) I got the wood looking ok. Now the problem is, I think there is some stretching here. Now on a normal box piece I know how to fix the mapping, but I have not ever had to do it on a cylindrical piece.

 

Is there an easy method? Or is the attached piece in good shape for a wood texture?

http://www.terranuts.com/forums/showpost.php?p=123428&postcount=46

 

I have to post a link to another forum as I simply cant get the images to load up, still getting the error 500 message.