Texture Mapping on a Church Apse - *Help Please*

[jargo1]

Hello all,

 

I am fairly new to 3ds Max and I am working on an Art History assignment. I need to apply traditional 13th century frescos that I create into the model of a cathedral apse (a half dome) I have modeled the apse and now need to add a jpeg I created of Christ onto it. I have been playing around with UVW Mapping, but I can't seem to get it right.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

[Cad64]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, it should be simple enough to just apply a "UVW Mapping" modifier, make it "Spherical" and then apply your material.

 

Make sure you have enough resolution in your model though, to help avoid distortion near the top of the dome. Add a few mesh smooth's to increase the poly count.

 

If that doesn't help, post some screenshots so I can see what you're trying to do.

[jargo1]

That has been what I have been trying to figure out. However, the image ends up looking tiled and completely distorted.

 

[Cad64]

There is something wrong. Your Length, Width and Height values are all 1'-0". Is that how big the dome is? That's pretty small for a church dome. And your U, V & W tiles are all different amounts. They should all be 1.0, unless you want the image to tile?

[jargo1]

I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall. When I apply the UVW it automatically tiles like that. I dont want it to and I feel like Ive tried everything. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. Getting really frustrated

[Cad64]

Sorry, I'm at work right now and very distracted, so I can't really focus on this. I know mapping images to spherical objects can be a little tricky, but I'll have come back to this later.

[jargo1]

I really appreciate your help. Thank you so much!

[Cad64]

Ok, I have a solution for you, but it requires Photoshop. Do you have Photoshop? If so, I'll put together a tutorial for you. You can also use Gimp or really any image editor. Let me know.

[jargo1]

I do have photoshop. Please let me know what you think will work

[Cad64]

Ok, I'm leaving work now. I'll put together a short tutorial a little later, once I get home.

[Cad64]

Ok, once you have created your half dome apply an "Unwrap UVW" modifier and then open your material editor and apply a default material. Now go to the "Unwrap UVW" modifier panel and click "Edit". This will open the "Edit UVW" window. Go to the "Tools" menu and select "Render UVW Template". This will open a "Render UV's" dialog. You can either accept the defaults or make adjustments if you want. Click "Render UV Template" when you're ready and Max will output a rendered image of the dome's UV's. Click the "Save" button and save out a tif or jpg and then open that image up in Photoshop. Insert your Christ image and position it over the area of the render template so that it covers all of the squares and triangles completely. Don't worry about the black area below. You just want to cover the area of the UV's. Save a copy of the image and then go back to Max. Open your material editor and insert your image into the diffuse slot of the default material you applied to the dome. Click "Show Map in Viewport" and you should now have your image applied to the dome.

 

Post back if you get stuck. I can't guarantee I'll be around this weekend, but I'll check back if I can.

[jargo1]

Will try that later on this evening. Thanks a million!!!

[jargo1]

So...when I Rener UVW Template it just shows up all black. I've tried moving the elements down into the blue box, but I'm still not getting an image when I render. Hell, at this point, I'm willing to pay someone to do this for me....

[Cad64]

Maybe I didn't explain it very well.

 

Here are a couple of tutorials:

http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/3ds/unwrap_uvw_mapping/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4p23U2ZAno

[jargo1]

I am following the steps exactly, however, I still only get a black screen when I click "Render UVW Template" I've tried scaling the dome, moving it, expanding it...nothing seems to work...

 

Here is a screenshot just before I click on the render button:

 

Here is a screenshot after it renders:

 

Any idea what's wrong?

[Cad64]

It looks like the dome is an "editable mesh". Try converting it to a an "editable poly" and then render the UV template again.