Projecting a UVW Map

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We're now about ready to apply some texture maps onto surfaces.

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It's important to know that even if the C

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AD document originally had textures or decals,

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those are not saved

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when the document is exported out to, for example, a step file.

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So there's no way to actually preserve

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any of the decals that were in the original C AD document.

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That means it's the visualizer's job to recreate that if it already exists,

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to facilitate the process of assigning materials

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to parts of objects,

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we want to break the object apart and detach certain surfaces.

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That's just way easier than using a multi sub

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object material.

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And to illustrate that

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I can get a little bit closer in

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the perspective view with control alt and middle mouse

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and display edges on selected objects.

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If I select that chassis object,

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we can't really see very well because it's black,

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but we can enable the display of edged faces on selected objects

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that's done in the viewport menu.

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The rightmost menu here is the so called per view preference menu.

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It's currently labeled default shading,

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click on that

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and choose display, selected

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display selected with edged faces.

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And now the selected object shows wire frame superimposed over shading.

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So here's an area for a logo. I want that to be a separate material

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than the surrounding area

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also. Likewise with this down here, which is the model number.

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So I'll just detach those surfaces to separate objects.

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With that chassis selected

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go up into the modify panel

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in the body object parameters.

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We want to open up the section labeled object parameters

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and we want to be in face selection mode

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and then select the face that we want to detach

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and click detach

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that's saved out to a separate object.

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We want to do the same for this area down here.

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We'll need to go back into face selection mode,

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select that face

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and again detach,

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then we want to rename those objects. So click off to select nothing,

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select the logo object and rename it, logo,

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select the model number object

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and rename it

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model number.

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There's another service I want to detach, which is the L CD screen.

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It's actually part of the display frame object.

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So I'll navigate with the middle mouse button,

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select this frame

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and just isolate it. We can click on the isolate selection button

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and we want to detach this central area here which

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is going to be the L CD display screen.

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Once again, go into face selection mode,

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select that face,

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click detach,

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select the object

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and rename it,

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display L CD.

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OK. We can exit out of isolate selection mode

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and we want to make sure that the objects we've recently detached

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are in the correct layers and also in the correct animation hierarchy.

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So open up the layer explorer

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and we see display L CD logo and model number,

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select those with the control key,

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drag them over into the radio layer.

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Now they're in the proper layer,

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they also need to be parented to the radio helper.

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So we can open up the scene explorer

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and those selected objects are not Children of the radio helper.

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We can just drag them over on top of the radio helper

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and now they've been parented.

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OK. We can verify that

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we can close that scene explorer

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and just make sure that the parenting is correctly done.

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We can select our radio helper

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in the perspective view,

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select it,

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grab the rotate tool

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and we can rotate in any viewport

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just to make sure that all those objects are parented.

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Very good.

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I'll restore the rotations to neutral, just setting them all to zero.

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And now we're ready to apply a UV

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W map

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to facilitate that.

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We're going to select a whole bunch of objects and apply

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a single UV W map modifier to all of them.

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So we'll go back to select object.

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And in the layer explorer, I want to select the L CD screen,

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it's going to be a little bit difficult to select that

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in the viewport because it's hiding behind a piece of glass

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So open up the radio layer,

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scroll down and select display L CD

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and we can select the remainder of the objects directly in the viewport

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with focus on the perspective view. Let's maximize it with halt W

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and we can go around and select all the other objects that we want to map.

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Starting from this big button here.

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Hold down control and select that.

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Then we have two buttons on either side here.

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you've got the logo,

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all 16 of these lower buttons,

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you can see we're selecting those and they're highlighting in the layer explorer.

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And finally this model number object down here

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controls, select that as well.

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We've got 22 objects selected. We can see that here in the modified panel.

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Now we're ready to add the UVW map modifier.

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So from the modifier list, scroll down

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and choose

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UVW map.

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And if we orbit or tumble with halt and middle mouse,

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there is a Gizmo here

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but it's not aligned correctly.

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So the mapping Gizmo is aligned to the Z axis.

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Let's switch that over to the Y axis.

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And we can make that a little bit easier to see

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by opening up the UVW map modifier, subj object types,

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select the Gizmo

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and then with the move tool active, just

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move it out in the Y axis.

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There's our mapping Gizmo,

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let's change up the width and height,

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set them bold to a value of 10 centimeters.

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And now that's very large. It's actually larger than it needs to be.

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If we orbit around. Once again,

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it's not just the area covered by all these objects,

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but it's got a wide margin around it.

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But that's ok

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because we don't need to worry about wasting bitmap resolution in this case

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because I'm going to be using a vector graphic.

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And in that case,

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we don't have to worry about resolution at all.

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It's actually more important that this is a square and

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that makes it easier for us to keep our sanity.

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We just want to make sure that the Gizmo is in the right position

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with that Gizmo selected

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and the move tool active down here, we see

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it's at an X position of zero.

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The Y position doesn't actually matter

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because it's projecting at right angles to this plane.

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So changing the Y position

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doesn't actually change the mapping coordinates.

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The Z position is currently 4.785

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in order to match the exercise files. Exactly.

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I'm going to increase this a little bit to

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It just came about from the positioning that I used when

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I originally created the texture maps we'll be using later.

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All right,

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we've got our UVW mapping applied on to all

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the objects that are going to need a texture.