MJL Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 I'm working on a realistic model of my Acoustic guitar, I plan on putting a mahogany decal on the sides.The grain will be running lengthwise on the sides. I would think that I should "flatten" the sides to apply the decal. I did a search and tried to follow Rusty's wonderful tutorial, but I'm not doing a face, and I think I could get by with a simple overview of the process. Mainly, How do I flatten and once there how do I get it back to where it was? Thanks, Myron Quote
steve392 Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Theres a good tut for this FLATTEN_TUTORIAL.zip Quote
Gerry Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Steve, thanks for posting that tutorial (and of course thanks to Jim Talbot for doing it)! Some extremely handy tips in there. Are there subsequent segments available? Quote
steve392 Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Gerry I think there was 3 parts to it ,it must be in the tuts somewhere ,maybe a search will get it .I only have this part ,sorry Quote
John Bigboote Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Nothing against the flattening method- but I would look into using 'patch images' also... Quote
largento Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Don't forget William Sutton's UV Tutorial. He shows off using the UV editor so that you can put all of your decals into one decal image. He had a CD for sale awhile back that was very helpful, but I don't think he sells it anymore. Quote
steve392 Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Matt tell me more about patch images please ,Ive never heard of them Im lacking more in my edgucation Quote
NancyGormezano Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 I'm working on a realistic model of my Acoustic guitar, I plan on putting a mahogany decal on the sides.The grain will be running lengthwise on the sides. Mainly, How do I flatten and once there how do I get it back to where it was? The way to "flatten" is to do it in an action - therefore not destroying your model. One also does the decaling in the action as well. I'm going to suggest a different approach than A:M flatten - so I won't be describing that procedure. In this case I would do a pseudo-flatten for the sides - ie in the action manually move the cps, and apply the decal in the action. The real A:M "flatten" is more trouble than it's worth (for this case). The objective in moving the cps in the action is to get the shape in a form such that applying a vertically striped wood pattern from the side view can be applied using a planar method, and have it be continuous. 1) in the model: group the sides, and hide everything else. 2) open a new action 3) in action window - switch to muscle mode 4) from front view in action - select cps and move them so that they sorta resemble a stretched cylindar 5) While the action window is open, and you are viewing the distorted model from the side - right click on the model (not action) in the PWS (very important) and choose new decal, image. The image will appear in the action window, make sure method is planar - choose "apply". 6) While still with action window open, right click on decals container (in the guitar model - and choose group undecaled - then select hide. double click on the decal container that was created for the wood decaled sides - and choose apply again- inorder to get those patches not decaled in the first place. 7) if you don't like the scale of the grain or image, you can manipulate the repeat pattern in the x direction for the decal image - or you can work in the uv editor to scale the mapping 8) if the above isn't clear - then please ask more questions. Quote
NancyGormezano Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Matt tell me more about patch images please ,Ive never heard of them Im lacking more in my edgucation Right click on a group of cps - choose add image/wood - the entire image will be mapped to each patch in the group. Very simple, quick, very nice. But has some drawbacks. I believe it makes for longer render times (or it use to). And you will probably find you will have to rotate the images on some patches. Each patch will look the same, and you will then see the "patch sizes". You may also need to manipulate the repeat(s) per patch. Quote
John Bigboote Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 What Nancy said--- however... You would want to edit your wood image in a photo editor to make a 'tile' that melds into itself from side to side. Yes, you may need to rotate some of the patch images-but it's not too hard (Select the patch- Right/click on it and choose 'Rotate Images') No- patch images do not slow a render down more than any other decal would. Quote
John Bigboote Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 I took your posted guitar image and made you a patch image to try out... Quote
MJL Posted June 5, 2009 Author Posted June 5, 2009 WOW ! I should have subtitled this thread: "A LOT of help from my friends" Thanks Everybody! I just got up, so I'll have to fix some coffee and try to absorb all this. More Later. Thanks Again, Myron Quote
NancyGormezano Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 (edited) One other thing that I forgot to mention with respect to this particular model - it is probably not necessary to flatten the sides at all for decaling with a vertically striped image. try it Isolate the sides - go into a side view (4 or 6) in the model window. apply decal, find the undecaled patches and apply again. And after the apply - again - you can change the repeat pattern, and/or manipulate the mapping in UV editor In this example I decaled without flattening, then changed the repeat, and scaled, translated the cps in the uv editor Matt - in previous versions of A:M - I had noticed that there was a very, very big render hit for using patch images extensively - ie lots n lots of patches - I'm glad to hear that's no longer true...I will go back to using it more. EDIT: 2nd image illustrates more clearly the difference between decaled (without flattening) versus patch image - and using the same image for both Edited June 5, 2009 by NancyGormezano Quote
Gerry Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Two more cents to add...I believe acoustic guitars have a seam at the bottom, where the strap peg would be. So having a seam there wouldn't be a drawback. What I mean is that if you were to go the "flatten" route you could do it in two halves and save some heartache trying to flatten or unwrap the entire side section in one go. EDIT: Don't forget William Sutton's UV Tutorial. He shows off using the UV editor so that you can put all of your decals into one decal image. Yikes! I wish I'd seen this before I did my dinky little decaling tute! Brilliant! Quote
steve392 Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Well ,Im gonna have to play with that decal image ,looks a good way to go for a lot of things .Thank's Guys and Gals I never seen this before Quote
jakerupert Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 >Theres a good tut for this Attached File(s) FLATTEN_TUTORIAL.zip ( 4.67mb ) Number of downloads: 6 All went well... until I tried to copy/pastedmirrored the muscle cps (corrected overlaping) Nothing is happeneing. it just want change the other side. My model is symetrical,I tested it with mirrormode on and draging around one half of the face. Does anybody have an idea, what I can be possibly be doing wrong? I am on PC with 15f (Don`t want to kidnap this thread, but I think everything else is said here already, right?) Quote
steve392 Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 No idea what the problem is but Iv allways kept the face as one ,never needed to copy it over Quote
GAngus Posted June 5, 2009 Posted June 5, 2009 Gerry I think there was 3 parts to it ,it must be in the tuts somewhere ,maybe a search will get it .I only have this part ,sorry I was able to dig them out over here.. Seems to be 4 of them.. 1,2,3a, & 3b FLATTEN_1.mov.zip FLATTEN_2.mov.zip FLATTEN_3a.mov.zip FLATTEN_3b.mov.zip Quote
MJL Posted June 7, 2009 Author Posted June 7, 2009 Thanks again, everybody, for your responses and your help. Largento: When I get in a little deeper I’ll be studying that uv mapping tute Matt: For this guitar I wanted the long wood grain lines. I’ll be trying the patch images in a couple of things coming up. Gerry: I did the sides in two pieces, and book matched the seam Nancy: Once again you saved the day. I followed and saved your instructions and pictures. Thank You. Here’s what I ended up with. I book matched the front and the back. I’m learning tons. Like the fact that if your splines are under control everything else is easier. Oh yeah, and save often. The good thing about forgetting to save often is that you get to do everything many, many times for lots of practice. It's been a lot of work, but I'm pretty happy with it so far. Guitar_Turnaround.mov Quote
NancyGormezano Posted June 7, 2009 Posted June 7, 2009 wow - looks terrific - very professional, great job. Quote
John Bigboote Posted June 8, 2009 Posted June 8, 2009 Sweet looking 'gitter! You are SO right about crashing, it gives you the opportunity to do it again...only a little better...and with a little more cntrl-S'ing. Quote
MJL Posted June 8, 2009 Author Posted June 8, 2009 Thanks Matt, I'm working on the neck now. Gotta run, I just came into some bundles of $1 bills and i gotta go spend em. Some kind of A:M stimulus package or somethin. Gerry, Bookmatching is a wood working technique of taking two slices of wood veneer, reverse one and mirroring the grain pattern. Quote
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