Is there a way to use multiple UV maps to map multiple UV textures to a single mesh object? For instance, so a watertight character model could have a 1024 head UV map and another 1024 body UV map, each using its own separate texture.
I thought this wasn’t doable in 2.45, but between the new Multi-UV and the versatility of vertex groups (and maybe nodes?) I hold out hope there’s some way to do it despite my first few experiments not working.
Okay, first things first.
Select the first group of faces you want use the first texture with and under F9 link and materials, add new vert group and then assign the faces to that group. Add a new material if there isn’t one in the same panel and hit assign to that material index.
Select the inverse faces, and repeat the process to assign a new vert group and a new material to the next area.
When unwrapping, you can use the selection of the vert group to switch selections, and you can unwrap them individually in the editor. Apply the individual images to the materials you have added in the texture mapping channels, mapped to uv. I do not believe you need a separate uv layer since you will have two separate areas without overlap - if you will have overlap then you will need two layers and use images that enable transparency so you can blend them.
Aha, multiple materials!! That’s ingenious! This looks like just what I was looking for – thanks lots craigomatic!
You can also define material influences using nodes with grayscale values, check out the link in my sig for a tut.