The main prupose of creating it was that I have never been able to model a face.
So I thought that some simple creature (like a butterfly) would have much less things that make modeling difficult. Like legs or hands or tails, for example.
Anyway, here are the images:
I guess that this is a WIP now.
C&C more than welcome! Especially the C.
The things Iāve improved about him so far:
27.09 - Lighting
08.10 - Wing texture, itās still crappy though
MtheGreat, your butterflys face looks good, but the render has no direct light hitting any part of the face. Try changing your light setup to accent the butterflys features, and I think you will like the result.
One thing I learned when modeling a butterfly is that the wing textures are really important. Try looking up some pictures online, a good texture would spiff things up immensely. On the other hand, if the texture is too good, it will detract from the cartoony look, so use your judgement there.
I tried to texture the wings, but this is a pain in the a*s. Question: how can I do some precise texturing? Because, as far as my drawing skills go, I am not able to do exactly what I want just with the mouse brush thingy.
You should get paintshop pro or photoshop. Those are great painting softwares. You should also UV unwrap the wings then export the unwrapped image and edit it in a painting software. that will give you some good dimentions to work with. Plus when you apply the texture all that you will have to do is apply the texture to the UV cordinates.
Hereās an overview of how to apply the attached texture. There are lots of UV mapping tutorials, Iād suggest doing one to become farmiliar with the process. UV mapping is a very powerful way to make your models look really good. Also, I use the Gimp for image editing, mostly because itās free.
Select the wings, go into āUV Face Selectā mode, align the view so you are facing the wings, hit āUā and a menu will show up. Use āProject from viewā.
Attached is an image I got off of Wikipedia. Create an image texture and apply it to the wings with the maping mode set to āUVā Change a window to āUV/Image editorā and you should see the shape of the wing uv positioning. In the menu on the header select the texture of the butterfly wings, it should show up behind the uv layout. Align the wing uv positions with the image, it wonāt change the geometric shape of the wings. When you render now the texture should be mapped on to the wings! You can use a colorband to change the color, or alter the texture in an image editor.
I know how to unwrap, how to UV paint, how to texture paint, how to node the texture and all thatā¦
I guess I didnāt make myself quite clear.
So, imagine I have my butterfly and 2 viewports, a 3D and an UV editor one.
Now I select just the left wing, for example, and switch to UV Face Select mode.
I unwrap using smart projection or whatever is best for it and create a new image in the UV image editor window.
Now I go to Texture Paint mode. Everything perfect at the moment, right?
So, I can now paint with my mouse either on the UV image or the model itself.
Now, if I design the left wing, I can just apply the same image to the right wing to make the butterfly symmetrical. No problem with that.
But, the method itself - painting with the mouse - is driving me crazy. I mean, even MS Paint is more accurate.
Well, then why donāt I just edit the image in MS paint? Or Photoshop or Corel, perhaps?
And to the real problem now - because the whitish lines in the UV editor that show me on which faces I draw will disappear. Iāll get just the blank black image and I wonāt have an idea where this or that circle is going to.
Is there any way to get these lines to an outside editor - or some better drawing features to Blender? Thanks in advance.
Dudecon - the shortest and the best UV tutorial Iāve seen so far (obviously, I havenāt seen very much), big thanks and I learned how to stick foreign images on meshes.
But since Bruce is rather cartoonish and Iām rather creative, Iād rather (ehh, I gotta find a synonym) paint his wings on my own. Any ideas on better UV drawing methods I mentioned above?
You could try finding a painting application that has layers support. Like the free Paint.NET. Iām not too sure whether GIMP has it too. Anyway, by putting the UV image exported from Blender into an external image editor, onto a layer with 50% opacity, you can paint on another layer and still be able to see the UV face lines.
Thanks, will tryā¦
What did you mean by āexported from Blenderā? The Dump Subwindow thingy or the actual image created in the UV editor?
(And, excuse me for being stupid, but what does WIP stand for?)
In the UV image editor, go to the UVs pop up menu, go to the scripts bar and select export image. There should be some options that come up but I think that youāre smart enought to figure them out.
Rightā¦
look in the 1st post, I made a basic blurred pixelated kinda plain texture. Not even good, but better than Stucci.
Anyway, it appears that no matter how high-res my UV images are, theyāll still look cheap on Bruce. So is it possible to apply a 2D vector graphic (you know, the one that you can zoom endlessly) to 3D models in blender? Or do something that would deal with the sharp pixelated edges problem?
Could be an issue with my 2D graphic knowledge, though. You never knowā¦:no:
I think your mesh needs a bit more working on; eg. to make it a little bit sharper around the edges. That way when your texture is pasted on it looks a little more convincing.
Though that would be a real hassle unwrapping again + might spoil the style you have with Bruce right now. :spin:
Donāt know much about vector textures in Blender, sry. :ba:
