Texture Mapping


Because we typically use only one texture per Seamless  node we need to specify different portions of the texture for the different portions of our avatar. This can be acopmplished using the TextureMapper    node when using any of the folllowing build nodes:
Before using TextureMapper   nodes for your model, the Seamless node should have a TextureEffect plugged into it. The TextureEffect's   url field specifies the name of the texture file but before typing in the file name, the length for the url field must be set to 1 using the incriment button:

 

When a Seamless node has a TextureEffect   pluged in and when a SphereBuild, CylinderBuild, ConeBuild, TorusBuild, BezierLaheBuild, BoxBuild, RectangleBuild, NurbsLathe or a BendyLathe is added from the main tool bar, a TextureMapper is automatically added to the build node. In the case of a BoxBuild node 6 TextureMappers will be added, one for each side of the box but 5 of them can be deleted after if you want to use 1 map for all six sides. Using a TextureMapper can be kept very simple if you use the texture multi_tile_texture_512.png

 

as a guide to show where the 8 by 8 tiles are located. (begin by using this actual file)
To select a tile first click the TextureMapper's clear button and then click the tile in the TextureMapper's selection grid that matches the tile in the texture file. After doing this we should see the selected color for our shape in the 3d window:

   

You are not limited to selecting 1 tile per TextureMapper, any number of tiles can be selected by clicking the appropriate tiles in the selection grid. Once you have got familiar with how to select tiles it should be easy to progress onto replacing any of the simple colors with more complex textures but be sure to replace the tiles with rectangles that make an exact fit in pixels. This does not mean for example you are limited to tiles 64 by 64 pixels for our example file, you can use single rectangles to replace any number of tiles:



but make sure they fit exactly the number of tiles you intend to use or you may loose the simplicity of the tile system. A typical paint program should have zoom, resize, copy and paste to make this task easy to perform.

It is best to work with png files because they don't degrade each time you edit them in a paint program like jpgs do but you can convert the png to a jpg for the end product if this reduces the file size but keep the original png backed up for possible future work.


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