Textures appearing different in Edit and Object mode

Question

I have never created a texture before, so I'm learning as I go. I created a texture map to edit in Photoshop, and for the most part, it's looking pretty good while I'm in Edit mode.

A few things are on the wrong sides (like the trace of white on the back leg) but that can be easily fixed.

When I go into object mode, however, the texture looks quite different:

The rabbit's chest is no longer white, and it has strange bands appearing here and there.

What am I doing wrong?

Also, is there a way to mirror textures from one side to the other in Blender instead of trying to guesstimate in Photoshop?

Thanks!

Here's my .blend, in case that will help diagnose: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29307

Answer 1

You have a Decimate modifier which is removing some geometry in flat areas, messing up the UVs.

Remove (by pressing the X icon) or disable it (by pressing the camera and eye icons) and then everything will work properly:

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As for mirroring, delete half of your model and then add a mirror modifier:

Note that the object origin has to be at the point you want to mirror around, so select the central loop and press ShiftS>Cursor to selected, then in object mode press CtrlShiftAltC>Origin to 3D cursor:

What this does is map mirrored faces on top of each other in the UV map (if you apply the modifier you get your complete rabbit and you can see the resulting UVs in the UV editor).

Answer 2

If, for some reason using the mirror modifier on the mesh doesn't work (for example, if you want a different placement for each of the two front legs, or you want one ear standing upright at a different angle than the other, while I'm not aware of a way to mirror textures, with some forethought, you can map different parts of the mesh into the same part of the texture. As example, you would eliminate one of the eyes, and one of the white spots in the texture, and map both eyes into one eye, and the insides of both ears into the same parts of the texture. You could also reduce the size of the other brown and white hues in the texture, and map multiple parts of the mesh onto those as well.