Question about texturing aircraft models

[Guest panzerschiffe]

Hello, I'm making an MD-11. I've made a little webpage where you can see what its progress is.http://www.thescorned.homestead.com/md11.htmlMy question is about texture mapping. I know nothing about painting aircraft or how the texture maps are typically setup. So on a typical aircraft model, how should the texture maps be set up? One texture for the fuselage? Two? How many for the wings? Etc...Thanks for any help you can provide.-AV

[Darth Mop 6]

nice! finally someone is doin' the MD11 ;-)-------------------------------------------best,http://smilies.networkessence.net/s/cwm/cwm3d/3dbiggrin3.gif <- temporary sig :-hah

[Guest Milton]

AV,Great job on the MD-11 so far. :-)First, do not even bother with mapping until every part you want to map (on a single map) is done. This will save a lot of time in remapping. With that said, sometimes mapping helps to find anomalies in the structuce like overlapping polys or inverted faces. The point here is once mapped, the objects cannot be changed unless you remap or reapply the UVW modifier in Gmax.To answer your question, there are many options but knowing the considerations help with the decision. The main concerns are level of detail and size of maps. 1024 for the best detail unless of course your put the whole aircraft on one making all the object very small. On the other hand, if you have 10-1024's, most video cards will choke. Also many varied sized maps tend to be a performance issue.The best results visually for detail require 1024 and 512 mapping, but of course you must be careful not to overdo it. Using 256 and 128's for smaller less significant, or less detailed items is fine. The best results performance wise would be one map with everything on it. So you must compromise between performance and visual detail. I do the fuse and associated part on a 1024, the wings, nacelles, and maybe stabs on 512. Everything else that I cannot fit/merge to those I usually put on a 512 or 256 depending on detail required.For large aircraft, I would recommend doing the fuse and all parts which make it enclosed (like bay doors, passenger/cargo doors) on one 1024 map. Try to follow this pattern: RF, LF, RR. LR, or top, then bottom if planar mapping. You may also be able to leave the vertical tail section on the fuse for ease of continuous lines.If you are using gmax and LithUnwrap, you can merge same sized maps to one another as shown in my example. I did the fuse with vertical tail attached, then merged in the wings and horizontal tail.Hope this helps.Milton