Sorry your browser is not supported!

When I was surfing on the web I found Milkshader.
http://www.sio2soft.btinternet.co.uk/

Is it any different from UV Mapping softwares like Ultimate Unwrap 3D?

If so, Can anyone tell me what exactly UV mapping means/is?
Is it ideal for the beginner?

Thanks,

Well, never used Milkshader, never heard of it either so it's probably not as good as Lithunwrap.

About UV Mapping.
Each polygon in your mesh is made from 3 vertices. Polygons can share vertices, each vertice has a 2D UV map location.
UV data tends to be on a 0.00 to 1.00 type scale, so the resolution of the texture is not important, using a lower res texture will work perfectly without any need to change the model.
Each vertice holds a 2D X and Y UV position, this is used to texture the individual polygon. If you single out 1 polygon, it would have 3 verts each with a 2D location, so it's like the polygon is drawn onto the texture almost, except the polygon takes the texture depending on these coordinates. Specifying this data manually is out of the question, so we have programs like Lithunwrap that UVmap our meshes for us to make life easier.
The most common and widely used method is plain mapping. This is like taking a screenshot of the mesh at a certain angle, then projecting the UV data so it flattens to the texture. There are a number of different mapping methods, like sphere mapping and cube mapping - it all depends on the mesh, but obviously plain mapping is the one you will use the most. Cylinder mapping is good for characters limbs and heads, it's like wrapping a piece of paper round your leg then drawing a pair of trousers. Sphere mapping is good for planets and sky spheres - the image editing with sphere map textures can be a nightmare though. Box mapping is something I find unnecessary when you plan your model properly and use Planar mapping.

It is a skill that takes a bit of learning, but it's not rocket science once you know how it works. Just don't try and UV map an animated object or anything like that - make your model, texture map it, then animate it and draw the texture map.

A good example of quick modelling would be a gun.
Start with a side view of a gun, then load this into your modeller as a viewport background, then trace around it. Once you get the mesh looking pretty much like the gun, you could Planar map the gun image onto the gun, and that's pretty much it, a complete textured gun in no time.


Van-B

A quite browse reveals that Milkshader is an add-on utility for MilkShape 3D. As such, it is more about shading and procedural textures than a UV mapping tool.
--
TAZ

milkshader looks like a plugin yeah.

Ill tell you the best kept secret regarding uv wrapping and milkshape. It wont work for everything but it helps in a lot of ways.


make a bitmap of say 256 x 256 and make it all jet black.

save it to the folder your mesh is in.

now say this object is a sphere, divide it into 4 segments using the group tool, this way u have 4 quarters.
apply this black texture to one of the quarters

then go into the texture manager and choose how you want to map the
quarter of the sphere.

unselect it so your removing the red dots.

make sure you can see the whole mapped out image and its scale 1.

take a snapshot of the screen and paste this new image into your preferred 2d editing package.

From here cut away all the scren junk or by holding alt when you press printscreen u can cull most of the junk away.

this is a slow process but allows you to make your own uv maps for your objects as well as discerning what kind of mapping is required.

The alternative method if you want them all onto one large uv map is to make a bmp the same size as your desktop and paste the snap shots into the large uv map bmp, then shrinking it down afterwards.

I cant afford lithium unwrapper just yet so Ive had to tackle things like this but im going to invest in it as it looks really helpfull

Indi,
Get Lithunwrap now! - It's free!

It has a really handy 'Save UV Map' feature that is ideal for saving the wireframe UV image to a bitmap. Then you simply stick it over the texture as a translucent layer and away you go. I like to work in sections using the lasso tool, a good wire template makes life so much easier.

Applegm,
It's a good idea to keep the wireframe UV image so you can use it as a guide for drawing the texture. Polygon edges can be highlighted for instance, which would improve the look of metallic textures and give them a worn look if you like - I suggest finding some example models and taking a look at them through Lithunwrap, it'll make more sense once you can see the data itself.


Van-B

I agree with Van B totaly. Lithunwrap is all you need to edit UV of any low poly model you will ever build.
I use it with Wings3D and its satisfiing me totaly ...look at my warior and capitan model, it was edited with Lithunwrap.

Lithium Unwrap, the free version, is getting harder to find. The author no longer hosts it since he decided to make a shareware version called Ultimate Unwrap.

I looked at other sites mentioned on this forum and they are all broken. Here is a set of valid links/mirrors for your downloading pleasure.

http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?action=download&fileid=198&mirrorid=7&filename=lithunwrap_setup.zip
--
TAZ