Hello there!
I’m a newbie at Blender, been using it for about 2-3 months now… I have a huge question and if possible i want you guys to answer me.
So i have created three new materials (black, yellow and white) to a model i’m making (a lightsaber, for a game) and assigned each one of them to a specific part of the model as you can see
But i also wanted to make them fill the UV Map, which means i want them to be assigned to the UV Map as well, as a texture. How should i do that? Anyone to help me please?
A better approach would be to create a texture with patches corresponding to each color/material and then edit the UVs to match. This is actually very common in video games because many objects can share the same texture. You could make a single set of textures (normal, color, etc) for many different lightsaber models, just adjusting the UVs for each mesh.
As Ben said, for a game asset you’d be better combining all the textures for a single object into one material, instead of the three you have. You can then do anything from simply painting in the right colours onto the appropriate area of your texture to doing a more complex PBR material.
I “cheated” by using Substance Painter for this example image, but you can see the colour texture alongside the roughness one. Brown areas are where it looks like leather, etc. One material. One UV map. Four texture maps (colour, metallic, roughness, normal). Three or four visual materials.
“Texture painting” is available in both 2.79 and in 2.80 (albeit in different ways), and it’s an excellent way to approach the texturing of complicated things. The object is unwrapped – it can be auto- unwrapped since it really doesn’t matter – and the desired textures are then literally “painted on” to one or more maps. It’s your chance to wax artistic without getting your clothes and fingers dirty …
Also – keep firmly in mind what a UV map does, and doesn’t, do. It really isn’t a “map” in the usual sense. Rather, it illustrates how each (X,Y,Z) point in 3D space maps to (U,V[,W]) coordinates in (planar) texture-space. The regions do not usually overlap, although they can.
So, the phrase, “assigned to the UV map … as a texture” has no meaning.
Instead, the UV information, as illustrated to you in a map that you can see, tells Blender where to look on other (2D) maps (which do contain data of some kind …) in order to determine what data to use from those various sources for any particular 3D face.
Alright… thx for the answer, you and Ben! I believe i still don’t know how to do that so i’ll have to check it out on the youtube. If u guys could link me some videos u think it is great, i’d be very grateful.
You can find many good tutorials on Youtube. Use search terms like “Blender texture painting”
This one covers manually painting textures on a low poly game object:
This one might be useful if you want your lightsabre to be a little less than pristine
Blender Guru covers PBR texturing using the Cycles (and EEVEE) Principled Shader:
While you’re learning, you’d be better sticking to watching tutorials that cover Cycles and EEVEE render engines rather than the older Blender Internal renderer, as that’s not going to be around much longer. Both have the Principled shader which I absolutely love.
