hey there 
i’m having trouble with a curve object, which is formed into a leaf-shape, and i have a scan of an actual leaf that i want to map onto the Curve Object, but it doesn’t work…
i usually just put in the texture then play around with the offsX/Y/Z values until it’s placed right, but…
btw, this is the texture i’m trying to map onto the Curve
anyone have any ideas?
thanks a bunch
MeshWeaver
you probably have checkered or repeat on. either way i would uv unwrap it. you’d have to convert it to a mesh first, curves can’t be unwrapped.
omg, i tried converting it to a mesh, it was awful… something like a million little triangles 
well, a million’s an exageration 
i hate triangles…in Blender, to be precise 
triangles are strong, so…
anyway, i could just try and convert it and not worry about the triangles…
well, thanks i’ll try those suggestions
Actually, there’s something I don’t understand: Why’d you want to mould the curved into the shape of the leaf? Wouldn’t it be far simpler to take a plane and map this image to it? - with another for the alpha.
Is there any benefit this way - like, for example, with the game engine (A topic on which I know nothing)
@makr: There are some shadow casting reasons why you should keep the shape. In certain situations, using just a plane will with an alpha will cause tracing to not see the alpha. But keeping the leaf shape, you can get around this problem.
@meshweaver: You can use texture projection on a curve. The basic concept is you create an Empty and place it in front of the leaf so that the Z-Axis of the empty is pointing toward the surface you want to project on to. This is important caveat of this technique. It only projects along the Z-Axis. Then, in your material mapping for the leaf curve you choose Object instead of Orco and in the OB field type the name of the Empty. This make the empty work like a slide projector with the curve or mesh surface being the wall or the screen. To change the size of the image projected you just scale the Empty. You can also rotate the empty along the X and Y axis if needed. Don’t rotate along the Z-axis or your projection will move off the screen. If your projection surface is animated, you can simply parent the Empty to it’s target once it is aligned.
Here is an example file.
texture_projection.blend (271 KB)
so you mean that you could project onto let say a cube
and you simply have to set the Empty Z axis toward one of the face and it would project onto that face surface!
is there an equivalent for view projectiion ?
interesting way of mapping !
Thanks
That’s AWESOME! it would definitely come in handy when animating, right? (like if you have a projector) Thank you very much for that, i’m going to go try it right away
btw, is that my Leaf scan in the picture? 
lol
@makr - well, i used a Curve object because it’s a lot more controllable, and i was able to make the leaf exactly like i wanted it there must be some drawbacks, like when i tried running the GE, and the Leaf was nowhere to be seen, lol.
anyway, once i get the Texture right on the Curve, i’ll try making an actual Leaf Mesh out of Quads
wow, the Empty-based projection worked really well thanks Atom
here’s the final:
i plan on making myself a database of leaves, plants and things, but i think i’ll use Mesh instead of Curves… I like Curve Objects and all, but Meshes are much more, um, adaptable.
oh, and the pic is on my Flickr photostream - I thanked you there as well, Atom
looks very good! why didnt i think of Object mapping? lol
edit: you might want to add a little more light. i noticed a lot of stuff on your photostream is kinda dark.
