MAXON Computer Cinema 4D Tutorials: Interactive Mapping 2

Tips & Techniques - Bodypaint 3D

Bodypaint 3D:
Interactive Mapping 2
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In this part of the project you will break the model down into two or three parts to get it ready to paint. You will use Cylindrical Mapping on the handle and Flat Mapping on the flat of the blade for both sides.

Step 1: First in the Material Manager select File=>New Material. Now just drag and drop the New Material icon from the Material Manager to the Cube you started with in the Object Manager. Accept the defaults and click OK.

Step 2: In the Layer Manager, select Channels=>Color. Accept the defaults, you can change the size of the bitmap later. Fixing the UVs is the goal so a large map isn't needed...yet.

Step 3: Now double click the Background Color icon in the Layer Manager to make it active in the Texture View Window. Select Tools=>Show UV Mesh to see the UVs of the dagger. Pretty bleak looking, all of the UVs are piled high on top of each other, making painting impossible.

Step 4: In the Front View Window (F4), while in Polygons mode, use the Live Selection Tool (Selection=>Live Selection) to select the front facing polygons of the blade (Make sure 'Only Select Visible Elements' is checked in the Active Tool Manager). Choose Selection=>Set Selection, name the selection 'frontblade' by double clicking on the new Selection Tag created in the Object Manager, this will save time when reselecting this selection later.

Step 5: Now for the cool stuff. Select Functions=>Start Interactive Mapping in the Texture View Window. This will launch a Texture dialog, set the Projection to Flat. In the View Window you will see a projection of the texture, in the Object Manager select Texture=>Fit to Object. This will get the map close to the right size. Using the Scale Tool (Tools=>Scale), or by entering the following values, shape the map to fit over the selected polygons.

Step 6: Now in the Texture Window Select Functions=>Stop Interactive Mapping. Now you will see how the UVs are Flat mapped according to how you resized the projection of the map in your Front View. Cool eh? (For those who speak Canadian!)

Step 7: Now use the Uniform Scale Tool (Texture View: Tools=>Uniform Scale) to reduce the size of the selected UVs in the Texture View Window. Place these UVs in the corner of the texture map using the Move Tool (Texture View: Tools=>Move).

Step 8: Now repeat the steps for the other side of the blade. Only this time use the Back View to make your selection, save this Polygon Selection as 'Backblade'.

Step 9: Now use the Rectangle Selection Tool (Selection=>Rectangle Selection) in your Front View to select almost all of the polygons in the handle, except for the very topmost polygons. Make sure that 'Only Select Visible Elements' is unchecked in the Active Tool Manager so that you will select all of the polygons for the handle.

Step 10: Now in the Texture View Window, select Functions=>Start Interactive Mapping. When the Texture dialog pops up, select Cylindrical as your Projection. Now in the View Window, you can see how the map is projecting on the handle. Here are my settings for the map. You could also use the Scale Tool (Tools=>Scale) to interactively scale the map.

Step 11: Now again in the Texture View Window, select Functions=>Stop Interactive Mapping. Now you see the "peeled" Cylindrical map on the texture. Once again, use the UV Scale and Move Tools to position this part of the map to a corner. Note: Try to keep the size of the polygons somewhat relative to the other parts of the model, this will help a lot when painting the model later. If the polygon sections (areas that use different mapping types) on the texture map are out of scale with one another, when you paint it will show the seams BADLY.

Step 12: Now select the very topmost polygons using the Rectangle Selection Tool. In the Texture View select, Functions=>Start Interactive Mapping. This time select Spherical for the Projection.

Step 13: Now enter these values in the Coordinates Manager to resize the map, or you could use the Scale Tool and do it interactively.

Step 14: Now in the Texture View Window, select Functions=>Stop Interactive Mapping. Use the UV Scale and Move tools to resize the UVs.

Step 15: Now the map is ready to paint. Activate 3D Painting Mode (Tools=>3D Painting) and the Brush Tool (Painter=>Tools=>Brush) with any color to test the map. Now you will see that the map paints great, save for the areas where the different mapping types meet. These seams do not matter for this exercise because they have been purposely placed where the different areas of the dagger meet. (The leather of the handle, the gem at the pommel. A tutorial on seams and their repair will be up VERY soon! Keep posted!)