UV mapping a photograph to a head mesh

Hi all,
I’m not sure if this should be in Work in Progress or General help.
I’m working on UV wrapping a photograph around a head mesh
using only Blender + any 2d image editor.

I was pleased with the quick result,
I know the mesh is far from perfect & only the front half used.
The image in 3D view looks better than the rendered image. ?
I suspect that’s due to lighting & material settings.
My attempt at displacement mapping was poor.

I don’t understand: UV Window=>Select=>Stick UVs to Mesh Vertex (Ctrl C)
I don’t understand: UV Window=>Select=>Stick Local UVs to Mesh Vertex (Shift C)
I’ve ordered the latest 2.3 blender book, meantime I welcome any help on this .
Thanks,
Brian

Here’s the original photograph with eyes plucked.
http://img38.photobucket.com/albums/v117/bmcnicho/OriginalCrop.jpg

Here’s the 3D window view.
http://img38.photobucket.com/albums/v117/bmcnicho/Riclined.jpg

Here’s a render.

Here’s a render with a Black & White Image used for displacement map.

Unless you want iot stretched like that ur gonna need to break up the mesh into multiple parts. and multiple photos

what’s iot ?

you should find this thread interesting for your actual work: matching the uvmap to a given photo!

https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15026

Haven’t tested it, though.

Thanks oliveS,
I’ll work on that tonight.
I hear Theeth has a UV unwrap plugin which I haven’t tried yet.
I realise now, iot was a typing error. I thought it was more jargon.
Thanks all
:smiley:

Are U really need Disp ? Nor is better to do what U want, I think !

There’s a tut on 3dtotal … at www.3dtotal.com

In the free stuff section there’s something about mapping a photograph to a head… it’s not blender but the principle is the same…

md01

UVs are stored face-wise, so when 4 faces meet there are 4 UVs at the same spot.

if you select only one UV ( it is not the same as a vertex ) and then move it with GKEY the other ( 3 in most cases ) UVs will stay where they are –> dragging your mapping apart.

So if you want to keep the faces glued together you need the sticky option.

BM

It looks to me as if you need to simplify your mesh. A complicated mesh is very difficult to unwrap, and also has a tendancy to cause render artifacts.

Thanks all for your replies,

Modron:
To make a detailed head I need a detailed mesh.
I’m using subsurf to reduce the amount of verts,
I haven’t started on ‘ears’ yet


bjornmose :
Your info was very helpful,
I have been switching between editing the 3d mesh & editing the UV mesh
& not understanding. I now understand a little bit more.


Md01: www.3dtotal.com …,
That site & other similar is what inspired me to
do the same using blender.

LOD: ‘Normal’ mapping was faked displacement mapping.
Now we have real ‘displacement’
I’ve tried both with no good result.


OliveS
I tried ashids plugin - instructions were poor.

Fonix, It’s impossible to wrap a 2d pic around a 3d sphere
without stretching it. Fortunately most face detail is a few inches deep.