What would people like to see in a UVW Mapping tutorial?

well, anyone got ideas? :>

definitely put something in there about when to use averaged normals, and when to actually choose a specific axis

ok, thats food for thought.

Maybe you can explain alittle about using the automatic unwrappers and stuff. Especially the "Flatten mapping" which i personally never have understood what that is supposed to be good for.

uhuh....ok

best way to uv body parts, hair, spheres, and unusual objects.

ok, Im starting on it now. Im learning Milkshape and Wings btw so I can add parts for their UVW Unwrapping features.

How to make your "own" uv map, like how they detach faces, and arrange them for planar mapping, then use the morpher.

edit: how to use a checker map effectively too,.

eh if u still doing this, i would definatly suggest u have people in max take a look at the spaceship uv unrapping tutorial that u have (at least in v5.1) it does everything that your going 2 need for unit unwraping, im still clueless as to how 2 do missles and the like, so id like 2 learn how 2 do that :)

Ok, sorry about the delay guys :(, I havent been able to get my hands on 3ds Max yet (Any help would be great)

Thanks for the comments as well, but I dont particulaly get what you are saying Stinky Pooh :/

And Sansui, I am very sorry about the delay.

Ok progress, its not finished, but I am trying to include you suggestions as best as I can.

Andy's UVW Unwrapping Tutorial

Tools Needed:
- 3ds Max 4.* 3ds Max 5.* or Gmax
- A Paint Program
- A Print Screen Button

Optional Tools
- Textporter (only if you know how to use it, dont ask me)
- A Brain

This tutorial may require you to know some things about Max/Gmax, like how to apply modifiers etc. Im not teaching you how to use Max, just how to unwrap :)



This is the model I will be using mainly because it has organic and non-organic parts, (I will not be releasing this model in the near future) This means it is ideal for demonstrating the different techniques. First I will explain these two model types, Organic models usually have curves and more complicated surfaces, and if not constructed properly will often also not be as effective when rendered.
This is called Tri-Stripping, it is where you have straight strips of Triangles, or Polygons (quads) unbroken by shapes with more than 4 sides, here is an example of tri stripping:

This is not essential but it also helps to keep the model looking clean. Organic models also have to have many structure points that non-org ones have to have, for example, animateable joints, e.g knees and elbows, Non-Org models can have these too, but this is not the same as on a Organic model. Non-organic models are usually much more boxy and symmetrical, they usually also have more flat surfaces and not as many curved things like arms and legs, these make them much easier to Unwrap.
I have Split my model into a few parts as they all may require different types of mapping, its easier to do this then attach them all later as the UVW Coords you applied will still be there.
Im going to explain Non-Organic Mapping first, this is good to get in the groove, and get the hang of UVW Mapping.


First off, we need to apply a UVW Map modifier, this basically starts us on our way, now there are a few different types of UVW Mapping for non-organic, never use Cylindrical or Spherical Mapping, it dpends on what you are doing, for the backing on the chair part of my model, I used Planar Mapping along the Z Axis, when you choose an axis, you will see an orange gizmo pop up, make alternate between XYZ Axies to make the gizmo perpendicular to whatever face will be seen the most, or, like for the backing of my chair, whatever will include the largest number of faces that are visible, its not much use to have a planar map applied from top down, when your object is a verticle planes, this will make only one edge show in the UVW Unwrap Box, and you will have to move all the unseen verts into place, a very tedious task, but this cant be avoided in most cases as you are going to get faces that are at a right angle to the gizmo.

Now we open the Material Editor (press M) and make a new material, first set the Self Illumination to 100%, click on the box next to the "diffuse color" box and in the popup select "Checker" now you should be able to change the colors of your checker to whatever you want, and change the tile fields to 5, then apply it to your mesh(es).
You should have something on your mesh that looks a little like this:

looks good so far man...ill looks forward to unwraping my gmax models :D

hope to see the rest....

flames'

sorry for lack of updates Ive had a lot to do (no actually thats just an excuse for why I havent done it) but I am doing this slowly.