[SOLVED]Texture problems in Blender/Gimp/Unity

[gooddog15]

So, as the title says, I'm having problems with textures in Blende, Unity, and Gimp.

now lets start:

------------------------------------------=Blender=----------------------------------------------

this all starts and sort of ends in the UV/Image editor. While saving the Image, it doesn't save the UV lines.

The only way to get the UV lines out of blender, is to export them, causing them not to have a background color.

After applying color to the UV, putting it back into unity, it wont recognize the UV lines. So then I have to apply a new UV onto the existing UV.

I think it stems a problem with editing the texture in Gimp, however, I will get down to it below. So after applying the texture to the model, It looks like this:

It looks absolutely horrible.

-----------------------------------------=Gimp=--------------------------------------------------

So after getting the UV into Gimp, I attempt to fill it in with color, like a coloring book, however the fill in tool doesn't completely do it's job.

It will fill in a large area, but will not completely, leaving a ton of lonely pixels to manually fill.

I happen not to have a ton of time to do this, so its not a option. Also, when doing it, it may paint over the UV, causing the problems above.

----------------------------------------=Unity=---------------------------------------------------

so applying a texture that didn't come with a background, that said background becomes black, and when applying it, the model becomes black.

pls help

Edited October 9, 2014 by gooddog15

[mouzfun]

I'm not sure if i understood you correctly, but you can export UV lines, the texture itself, and then import them into GIMP as separate layers, is that what you are looking for?

[gooddog15]

I'm not sure if i understood you correctly, but you can export UV lines, the texture itself, and then import them into GIMP as separate layers, is that what you are looking for?

Sorry, I may have worded it incorrectly.

however, I'll see if it works.

the layering work! thank you!

Edited September 20, 2014 by gooddog15

[CaptainKipard]

Here's a solution: Export your UV layout in SVG format. The option is on the bottom of the window when you click to export. You can import SVG as paths in GIMP, and paths allow you to create precise selections which you can then bucket-fill.

Follow these steps

1. Export SVG UVs

2. Open the SVG with Inkscape. Select All. Click Path->Union. This absolutely necessary otherwise each triangle will be imported as a separate path.

3. Save the SVG file.

4. In GIMP Import the SVG in the Paths window.

5. Click "Path to Selection". Click Select->Grow. 4px is about ok. This is necessary because of filtering artefacts, when you zoom away from the model in the game.

6. Fill the selection with the colour you want.

You can also use your own custom UV islands if you want, all you need to do is make sure that only the relevant triangles are selected when you make a union in Inkscape.

Another way of creating custom UV selections is to only export the relevant UVs from Blender, by only selecting the relevant triangles in Edit mode, then exporting the SVG UV layout.

EDIT

By the way another perk of using SVGs is that SVG is a vector format, and that allows the lines to stay between pixels, which is exactly how it should be. Raster UV layouts create a 1px offset. It's a small problem which becomes bigger as your texture sizes become smaller.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[gooddog15]

thank you!

that helped ALOT.

look at this thing, it's beautiful!

however, it still has (limited) UV lines for some reason. know a fix for that?

also it still doesn't recognize it as a UV unwrapping when it's imported in. Do you know how to export both the texture and UV as one?

[nli2work]

you want the overfill the UV patches by a few pixels, 4~6 pixels of padding. As the mesh gets bigger or smaller on screen, the pixel averaging and mipmaps will make the UV edges change, the padding helps to alleviate that.

[CaptainKipard]

Also just to hammer this home: make sure your UVs have enough space between them to allow this padding on all adjacent UV islands. Whatever you choose your overfill thickness to be, you need to make the space between the islands twice that, obviously. I know this might seem obvious but even I sometimes forget to give myself enough space.

And also. Why does your colour map have an alpha channel?

Edited September 22, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[Daishi]

It helps to arrange your UV islands based on similar color too (if possible) - that way if it seams do appear on lower mipmap levels, they wont be as obvious if the edge bleeding and padding is happening into the same portion of the texture map. Helps with texturing too, if all your metal is in one corner, and all your orange paint is in another

[gooddog15]

And also. Why does your colour map have an alpha channel?

It's a default background in blender for UV maps. I can toggle it on/off in gimp.

Thanks for all your help! I'll see if i can do what you guys described tomorrow.

[CaptainKipard]

I'm not so much talking about the background as I am about the channel that holds alpha data. You should probably remove the channel altogether, it's just a waste of memory right now.

[gooddog15]

got rid of the alpha and original UV and made a more simpler UV/ texture:

It still has little mysterious lines all over it (if you can see it), so I experimented with a new texture and it fixed the problem (should of just overfilled more, but I ain't got time for that).

*kept it on edit mode to show the UV lines on the texture

also, could you guys tell me how to export both the texture & UV as one out of blender?

Edited September 23, 2014 by gooddog15

[CaptainKipard]

also, could you guys tell me how to export both the texture & UV as one out of blender?

What exactly do you mean? I'm pretty sure you can't, and I'm not sure why you'd ever want to.

[gooddog15]

What exactly do you mean? I'm pretty sure you can't, and I'm not sure why you'd ever want to.

What I mean, is having both the texture & UV exported out together as one. This means that when I put the texture onto the model in unity, it goes on correctly. I was able to do that with a small cube that I was testing the other day, however that was with a color grid. I was able to do this yesterday, with the model, however I forgot how to do it when I was making a new texture/UV.

[CaptainKipard]

When you unwrap, the UV layout gets saved with the model. It tells the model triangles which parts of a texture to map to. You don't need to do anything else.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[SiliconPyro]

Here's a solution: Export your UV layout in SVG format. The option is on the bottom of the window when you click to export. You can import SVG as paths in GIMP, and paths allow you to create precise selections which you can then bucket-fill.

Follow these steps

1. Export SVG UVs

2. Open the SVG with Inkscape. Select All. Click Path->Union. This absolutely necessary otherwise each triangle will be imported as a separate path.

3. Save the SVG file.

4. In GIMP Import the SVG in the Paths window.

5. Click "Path to Selection". Click Select->Grow. 4px is about ok. This is necessary because of filtering artefacts, when you zoom away from the model in the game.

6. Fill the selection with the colour you want.

You can also use your own custom UV islands if you want, all you need to do is make sure that only the relevant triangles are selected when you make a union in Inkscape.

Another way of creating custom UV selections is to only export the relevant UVs from Blender, by only selecting the relevant triangles in Edit mode, then exporting the SVG UV layout.

EDIT

By the way another perk of using SVGs is that SVG is a vector format, and that allows the lines to stay between pixels, which is exactly how it should be. Raster UV layouts create a 1px offset. It's a small problem which becomes bigger as your texture sizes become smaller.

I need to go home and try this right now.

[gooddog15]

When you unwrap, the UV layout gets saved with the model. It tells the model triangles which parts of a texture to map to. You don't need to do anything else.

really? I didn't know that it did that. thank you for telling me this.

edit: I've got this thing in game, however, it's on it's side for some reason. The little Icon for the model in unity is also on it's side. do I just flip it in blender to fix this? is this normal?

Edited September 23, 2014 by gooddog15