Author Topic: Any tips on UV Texturing this third party Aurora Starfury Model?  (Read 2274 times)

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Offline emark4

  • 27
Any tips on UV Texturing this third party Aurora Starfury Model?
I found this cool starfury model on blendswap by someone named ChrisKhun and I want to try and see if I can get this implemented into the Babylon Project mod (And hopefully get it to work as a cockpit model for the starfuries. (You can see the model in blender in Pictures 1 and 2)

https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/73521

Problem is that its not UV Textured so I want to figure out how to get it textured properly. Problem is that when looking at the UV Mapping (3rd Picture) it seems as the majority of the UV is small in the top right corner. Zoomed in (Picture 4) shows the UV Maps is the top of the starfury model.

I'm not sure how could I get this UV Textured. Is there a way to remap the UVs in blender?


[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
« Last Edit: April 20, 2018, 02:41:03 pm by emark4 »

 

Offline Deora11

  • 25
Re: Any tips on UV Texturing this third party Aurora Starfury Model?
Well, for one, I'd worry more about dropping the polygon count before UV mapping it. It would allow the UV mapping procedure to be far more easier and will save performance. Your pictures reveal a polycount of over 200,000 which is, in my book,'reserved' only for large warships with detail. With something as small as a fighter, you'll want to keep polygons at less than 10'000. Reasons for this is that fighters are generally placed in bulk during missions, such as squadrons and wings; and the detail placed upon them is generally unidentifiable at even the closest of ranges.

3 wings of highly detailed, 200k polygon fighters would heavily strain both your PC and the Freespace 2 engine, or may even crash them both altogether.

My advice is to do what I did with Tan.j's Battlestars; reduce polygons to an acceptable standard for the engine and fix the model in places it requires. You will also be able to identify places that can do without detail and learn techniques that will help your modelling in the future. I learnt more from trying to convert high-poly models than I did from creating them.
That's my advice on the issue.

P.S, for a lazy way of UV mapping a blender model, select it all in edit mode--hit space and type 'Smart UV map', its a cheats way I use when playtesting models to see if they hold up to performance standards.

 

Offline emark4

  • 27
Re: Any tips on UV Texturing this third party Aurora Starfury Model?
Well, for one, I'd worry more about dropping the polygon count before UV mapping it. It would allow the UV mapping procedure to be far more easier and will save performance. Your pictures reveal a polycount of over 200,000 which is, in my book,'reserved' only for large warships with detail. With something as small as a fighter, you'll want to keep polygons at less than 10'000. Reasons for this is that fighters are generally placed in bulk during missions, such as squadrons and wings; and the detail placed upon them is generally unidentifiable at even the closest of ranges.

3 wings of highly detailed, 200k polygon fighters would heavily strain both your PC and the Freespace 2 engine, or may even crash them both altogether.

My advice is to do what I did with Tan.j's Battlestars; reduce polygons to an acceptable standard for the engine and fix the model in places it requires. You will also be able to identify places that can do without detail and learn techniques that will help your modelling in the future. I learnt more from trying to convert high-poly models than I did from creating them.
That's my advice on the issue.

I'm still trying to learn blender. How would I reduce , say... The number of faces or so . that helps reduce polycount right? Like can I select a part of the ship and use a button that reduces the polycount?

 

Offline Enioch

  • 210
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Re: Any tips on UV Texturing this third party Aurora Starfury Model?
I'm afraid I will disappoint you, but from what I can see this model is utterly unsuited for the FS2 engine. For one thing, I see modelled-in panels, which are completely over-the-top for a fighter, and a significant hurdle for downrezzing it. The horrible smoothing also speaks for a potential host of manifold issues.

I know this is not what you want to hear, but attempting to import a third-party model into FS2 is a recipe for disaster.
'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'  -Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"

So don't take a hammer to your computer. ;-)

 

Offline emark4

  • 27
Re: Any tips on UV Texturing this third party Aurora Starfury Model?
I'm afraid I will disappoint you, but from what I can see this model is utterly unsuited for the FS2 engine. For one thing, I see modelled-in panels, which are completely over-the-top for a fighter, and a significant hurdle for downrezzing it. The horrible smoothing also speaks for a potential host of manifold issues.

I know this is not what you want to hear, but attempting to import a third-party model into FS2 is a recipe for disaster.

That's okay, at the very least I could just use it as a cockpit pot file instead. Had to chop the wings off in blender to make this work  and I decided to texture just the cockpit windows only.

Just need to figure out how to get the cockpit model to be a bit more brighter.