Starbright Illustrations (blog)

By The Illustrator 　http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/2010/05/09/easy-peasy-uv-unwrap-bad-but-easy-blender/

It worked!!

I’ve got UV unwrap working. It’s nothing to do with python scripts anymore. In Blender 2.49 – the version I’m using – UV unwrap is integrated directly into the interface. I found out how on this Blender 3D advice page.

All you have to do is open a UV window. Highlight all the faces on your model, hit U and chose smart unwrap. It unwrapped my spaceship in seconds. It’s no where near the quality of unwrap required for inclusion in the support files for a model to be used in Vega Strike, but it is an unwrap. I got it to work. Happy.

Using the UV unwrap I’ve baked the current colours to an image, following the 3D model baking instructions on this page.

It looks like an abstract painting

3D version of the same thing

It’s interesting to see the spaceship squashed flat like this.From the yellow bits I can see that the pilot’s canopy and the dishes of the heavy tractor beam projectors on the rear wings have been split in two and sprinkled around the 2D unwrapped image. Apparently this will cause colour bleed problems in a finished model and I’m going to have to learn how to persuade the computer to put them all together in an island with the same colour.

It’s going to be fun adding detail to this image and wrapping it back round the spaceship. I cant wait to add little colorful decals, insignia dirt and scratches, and inspection plates. Adding these little details and greebles is a large part of the fun of spaceship design.

There is still a lot of work to be done on the structure of the model first of course, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.