4/4 Finishing up

Some will consider this done and move on to texturing the object, others prefer to have fewer groups and a select few will take the time to stitch everything together into a single group (where possible). We’re going to stitch a few parts together so we get less seams.

For example, we can stitch the two larger bottom-left groups together. While in the the Vertex Sub-Object Mode, select two vertices that are supposed to be in the same place to check if the groups are properly positioned.

Also remember that selecting a vertex will automatically color the matching vertex in blue (hard to spot but it’s there). This doesn’t really work when Show Edge Distortion is on.

As luck would have it, they are well positioned. Drag the two groups closer together and Weld and Target weld {} the Edge vertices. You are going to end up with some distorted edges.

Move the bottom vertices until all the edges are bright green again. Voila, one less seam.

If you move on to the next group and select to adjacent vertices, you’ll notice they are not in the same place.

Take the time to track down a couple of matching vertices.

Knowing where everything fits, move the top group underneath the bottom one and start Welding and fixing the distortions.

In some cases, the UVW groups will be flipped or mirrored like so:

To solve this particular problem, select the entire flipped group, go to the Tools menu and click on Flip Horizontal.

Problem solved. Keep in mind that some might be Vertically Flipped.

Keep welding groups together, correct the distortions and flip them if necessary. You can stop whenever you want to but remember that texturing will be much easier if you have fewer groups and less seams.

After you’ve finished stitching the model, make sure every piece is scaled properly. To do this, click on the texture drop-down and select the CheckerPattern entry. The checkers should all be of equal size in the viewport texture.

If you want to texture the pillar, go to the Tools menu and click on Render UVW Template, select the size and click on render.

The End

Again, it all depends on your style of texturing and what you’re comfortable with. If you’ll ever have the chance to get your hands on some commercial game models, you might notice that they don’t bother stitching the parts at all.

In fact, for the pillars in our finished scene, we didn’t bother to stitch the parts either, since they were very easy to texture. The crates, however, are properly stitched and everything.

Also, stay tuned on our RSS feed for our Humanoid Character Unwrapping tutorial and our Normal Mapping tutorial.

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