I am trying to apply an image to a wavy mesh I created in Blender. I am not sure how to do this. I don’t think I have any seams because its one panel so I tried just unwrapping which didn’t work. Then I tried marking the edges as seams but this also failed to work. Where are the seams if any and how do I apply an image?
It looks like this : http://www.filedropper.com/screenshot2013-06-13at113537am
So this is a flat plane you are working with? If so then you don’t necessarily need to add a seam, but for future reference you should know that to add a seam you must first enter edit mode [Tab] then select the edges that you want to apply the seam to. After doing so you will want to enter your ‘Edges’ menu [Ctrl + E] and click ‘Mark Seam.’ After finishing that, all of your seams should have a red outline on them. Though, as I said, I do not believe you need seams on this project (unless I have misunderstood what you are trying to make), the only time you will need to use seams is when you are trying to project a 3D object into 2D space, in the case of an open object, such as a plane, you are already working with 2D space. I hope that clarifies seams a bit for you, now on to your real issue. After marking seams (only if you’re working with a 3D, closed mesh) you can go ahead and unwrap your object. In edit mode [Tab] it is important that you make sure you have your entire mesh selected, you can do so by pressing A (which stands for all) a few times until every vertex/edge/face has been de-selected and re-selected. Now you can go to your ‘UV Mapping’ [U] menu and click ‘Unwrap,’ and then your mesh should be unwrapped. To view your unwrapped mesh you need to open up a second viewport then switch it to the UV/ImageEditor. If you know blender well enough to do that manually then go ahead, otherwise direct your attention to the top of your screen and locate the box containing the word ‘Default,’ to the left of that text box there is a drop-down menu (The dark grey little box with an up and down arrow on it) with layout presets that you may use, go ahead and click on the drop-down menu then click ‘UV Editing.’ You should now see two panels, your 3D viewport on the right and your UV image editor on the left. You should see your unwrapped mesh in the UV image editor, if you do not then you should hover over your 3D viewport, make sure that you are in edit mode and, again, make sure that everything is selected by pressing A until it is all highlighted in orange. Alright, now that your mesh appears in your UV image editor, look at the bottom of the UV image editor panel and click the word ‘Image’ then click ‘Open Image,’ that will pull up your file browser and you must locate the image that you want to map to your mesh, once you have got your image file selected click the ‘Open Image’ button in the top right corner. Now you should see your image in the UV image editor with your unwrapped mesh over top of it, reposition your unwrapped mesh until it satisfactorily fits to the image you have selected (you can use the same shortcuts you can use in your 3D view; R to rotate, S to resize, and G to grab; as well as manipulate the individual verticies). Once that is done you can now go back to the default layout (via the dropdown menu at the top your screen again). Now go out of edit mode and, with your mesh selected, navigate to the properties panel on the right of the screen and select the ‘materials’ tab (it’s a little grey box with a pink circle on it) and click the ‘new’ button. Now go to the ‘textures’ tab (directly to the right of the materials tab) and also click ‘new’ under that. Still under the textures, find the ‘type’ drop-down menu, it should be set to ‘clouds’ by default, click it and select ‘Image or Movie.’ Scroll down until you see the word ‘Image’ with an arrow next to it, click ‘Image’ to expand it and you should see three buttons ( a drop-down menu on the left, a ‘new’ button in the middle, and an ‘open’ button on the right), select the drop-down menu and select the image that you mapped to your mesh earlier. Scroll down further until you see the word ‘Mapping,’ under mapping you will see a ‘coordinates’ drop-down menu, you will want to open that and select ‘UV.’ You should now see a new ‘Map’ input box directly beneath the ‘coordinates’ drop-down menu, click within the box and select ‘UVMap’ from the menu that pops up. Alright, We’re almost done. This last step is fairly critical yet not very obvious, especially since it is relatively new to blender. Go back into your ‘materials’ tab and scroll down until you see the word ‘Options,’ under the ‘Options’ menu you should see the words ‘Face Textures’ and it should have a check box next to it, check the check box and you are done. If you go ahead and give it a render you should see the image mapped to your mesh.
So this is a flat plane you are working with? If so then you don’t necessarily need to add a seam, but for future reference you should know that to add a seam you must first enter edit mode [Tab] then select the edges that you want to apply the seam to. After doing so you will want to enter your ‘Edges’ menu [Ctrl + E] and click ‘Mark Seam.’ After finishing that, all of your seams should have a red outline on them. Though, as I said, I do not believe you need seams on this project (unless I have misunderstood what you are trying to make), the only time you will need to use seams is when you are trying to project a 3D object into 2D space, in the case of an open object, such as a plane, you are already working with 2D space. I hope that clarifies seams a bit for you, now on to your real issue. After marking seams (only if you’re working with a 3D, closed mesh) you can go ahead and unwrap your object. In edit mode [Tab] it is important that you make sure you have your entire mesh selected, you can do so by pressing A (which stands for all) a few times until every vertex/edge/face has been de-selected and re-selected. Now you can go to your ‘UV Mapping’ [U] menu and click ‘Unwrap,’ and then your mesh should be unwrapped. To view your unwrapped mesh you need to open up a second viewport then switch it to the UV/ImageEditor. If you know blender well enough to do that manually then go ahead, otherwise direct your attention to the top of your screen and locate the box containing the word ‘Default,’ to the left of that text box there is a drop-down menu (The dark grey little box with an up and down arrow on it) with layout presets that you may use, go ahead and click on the drop-down menu then click ‘UV Editing.’ You should now see two panels, your 3D viewport on the right and your UV image editor on the left. You should see your unwrapped mesh in the UV image editor, if you do not then you should hover over your 3D viewport, make sure that you are in edit mode and, again, make sure that everything is selected by pressing A until it is all highlighted in orange. Alright, now that your mesh appears in your UV image editor, look at the bottom of the UV image editor panel and click the word ‘Image’ then click ‘Open Image,’ that will pull up your file browser and you must locate the image that you want to map to your mesh, once you have got your image file selected click the ‘Open Image’ button in the top right corner. Now you should see your image in the UV image editor with your unwrapped mesh over top of it, reposition your unwrapped mesh until it satisfactorily fits to the image you have selected (you can use the same shortcuts you can use in your 3D view; R to rotate, S to resize, and G to grab; as well as manipulate the individual verticies). Once that is done you can now go back to the default layout (via the dropdown menu at the top your screen again). Now go out of edit mode and, with your mesh selected, navigate to the properties panel on the right of the screen and select the ‘materials’ tab (it’s a little grey box with a pink circle on it) and click the ‘new’ button. Now go to the ‘textures’ tab (directly to the right of the materials tab) and also click ‘new’ under that. Still under the textures, find the ‘type’ drop-down menu, it should be set to ‘clouds’ by default, click it and select ‘Image or Movie.’ Scroll down until you see the word ‘Image’ with an arrow next to it, click ‘Image’ to expand it and you should see three buttons ( a drop-down menu on the left, a ‘new’ button in the middle, and an ‘open’ button on the right), select the drop-down menu and select the image that you mapped to your mesh earlier. Scroll down further until you see the word ‘Mapping,’ under mapping you will see a ‘coordinates’ drop-down menu, you will want to open that and select ‘UV.’ You should now see a new ‘Map’ input box directly beneath the ‘coordinates’ drop-down menu, click within the box and select ‘UVMap’ from the menu that pops up. Alright, We’re almost done. This last step is fairly critical yet not very obvious, especially since it is relatively new to blender. Go back into your ‘materials’ tab and scroll down until you see the word ‘Options,’ under the ‘Options’ menu you should see the words ‘Face Textures’ and it should have a check box next to it, check the check box and you are done. If you go ahead and give it a render you should see the image mapped to your mesh.
I Apologize for such a long reply but I just wanted to be as thorough a possible because I wasn’t sure of your skill level. If you have any more questions then feel free to ask. If you are still lost then I’m sure that it wouldn’t take too long to throw together some images for you to refer to, just let me know if you need them. I hope it all works out.
What do you mean when you say unwrapping “didn’t work?” Please share your .blend file so we can see what you are talking about. Use www.pasteall.org.
I can’t use that site where I am. Please do what I asked you to do.
Why would anyone use filedropper? Its so filled with ads its horrifying! We have better tools!