I'm new to Blender and am having a difficult time with UV mapping and was trying to add seams to unwrap things a bit more predictably, but I'm getting unexpected shapes and I'm not sure why. It's a basic lathe bottle shape with a cap. I was hoping to have top and bottom circle shapes and 3 rectangle islands to position onto the UV image. But for some reason it splits it up into way more parts than I want and they are scattered all over the place. The different projection types give me equally weird results and Active Quad never seems to work as elegantly as all the tutorials say it does. The closest I can get is a smart Unwrap, but the points are not aligned so the art gets messed up. The problem is, I'm so new, I don't know if I'm making a lot of work for myself or if that is just how UV mapping goes in blender... Is there a dummy proof way to unwrap and get just 5 simple islands? Or how to I undistort a group of points?
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$\begingroup$ Try one seam from top to bottom. Probably in the back so it's not visible. And a second seam around the bottom outside edge and another around the top outside edge.Should get you close Apply "Scale" in Object Mode first. $\endgroup$– DontwalkJan 11, 2018 at 22:20
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$\begingroup$ To share your .blend file in your original post use blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com $\endgroup$– DontwalkJan 12, 2018 at 15:37
2 Answers
Apply "Scale" in Object Mode first.
Try one seam from top to bottom. Probably in the back so it's not visible. And a second seam around the bottom outside edge and another around the top outside edge.
You can then export the UV Layout and bring it into an image editing program like Photoshop or Gimp and arrange your labels etc. Then save that (Less the UV map) and bring that into Blender as your texture.
If your UV map comes out like this (Vertical) you can rotate the UV Map 90' just like in the Editor. "R" + 90
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$\begingroup$ Sorry, I'm still new to blender...What do you mean "Apply "Scale" in Object Mode first."? Does it matter the order in which the seams are selected? Do I select all 3 seams then mark or do one at a time? Does it mean something if my vertical seam only selects as two parts? $\endgroup$– M.GoodJan 12, 2018 at 14:37
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$\begingroup$ When you make changes to a mesh it becomes non-uniform. Blender likes uniform so to tell Blender that apply scale in Object Mode press CTRL + "A" and select Scale or Rotation & Scale from the drop down menu...It does not matter the order you select seams and it does not matter how many... As far as your vert seam only selecting two parts. Try selecting all vertices and remove doubles in Edit Mode. It could also be that you have faces that don't have four vertices. At first glance your model looks pretty good. I'll put a link under your original post to share your .blend $\endgroup$– DontwalkJan 12, 2018 at 15:36
The cylinder projection is a fine way to unwrap the mesh as you want. You want to unwrap it in parts if you do though.
The reason the cylinder projection did not work is because your camera angle when you did cylinder projection was not orthogonal to the cylindrical shape of the bottle.
Here is the UV Map I was able to create with a combination of cylinder projection and normal unwrapping.
Method
- Cut a seem in the side, then the top and bottom ring.
- Select everything EXCEPT the top and bottoms of the bottle.
- Use an orthogonal view like front (numpad 1)
- UV Unwrap > Cylinder Projection
- Deselect the selected faces
- Select the top and bottom caps
- UV Unwrap > Unwrap
Maybe that will help you.
