mhahn123 Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 (edited) So I haven't played around with uv mapping a whole lot...just a few simple edits here and there. My problem is with the vanilla stonewall pieces, as with a lot of vanilla meshes..the uv maps are not right. And it leads to a weird visual glitch when applying new textures to these pieces. I managed to get the UV Maps straightened out on the main mesh, stonewall01, so that my new textures look right. The question at hand is: Is there a way to copy uv maps from one mesh to another mesh..via nifskope or any other method? Since almost all the pieces in the set use an identical uv map anyway, it would save me a ton of time. I just want to avoid having to spend 15-20 minutes respectively on each and every separate stonewall piece. That would take me weeks given the limited time I have each day to do modding. If anyone has suggestions, hints, tips....I would be eternally grateful. regards, M Hahn Edited January 25, 2014 by mhahn123 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IkeCoast Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 (edited) Sorry to bring the bad news, matey, but UV maps aren't interchangeable, because they're a "physical" property of the 3D mesh itself. The UV map is the "skin" of the mesh as much as your skin is... well, your skin. You can edit (scale, rearrange, rotate, flip, et al) an UV map, but never take it off from its mesh and put it on another. Just like you can't take off your own skin and put on anyone's else. Because you can't, can you? Cheers! EDIT: I was so distracted by the image of you putting on yourself anyone else's skin that I forgot to mention that no two meshes have "identical" UV maps, unless they're both identical copies of the same mesh. So if you change the UV map on one, all you need to do is deleting the second mesh, creating a copy of the first one with its new UV map and using the copy to replace the second mesh. But only if the original meshes were already mutual clones. Edited January 25, 2014 by IkeCoast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhahn123 Posted January 26, 2014 Author Share Posted January 26, 2014 Sorry to bring the bad news, matey, but UV maps aren't interchangeable, because they're a "physical" property of the 3D mesh itself. The UV map is the "skin" of the mesh as much as your skin is... well, your skin. You can edit (scale, rearrange, rotate, flip, et al) an UV map, but never take it off from its mesh and put it on another. Just like you can't take off your own skin and put on anyone's else. Because you can't, can you? Cheers! EDIT: I was so distracted by the image of you putting on yourself anyone else's skin that I forgot to mention that no two meshes have "identical" UV maps, unless they're both identical copies of the same mesh. So if you change the UV map on one, all you need to do is deleting the second mesh, creating a copy of the first one with its new UV map and using the copy to replace the second mesh. But only if the original meshes were already mutual clones.Ok so no two have "identical" uv maps but they obviously have at least nearly identical settings, one can see that by looking at them in nifskope. So I guess the next question would be is there a way to copy or mimic the uv map coodinate settings? I see there is an export file function but haven't been able to figure out how to work with it. And I can pull up a list of what looks like coordinates for all the uv lines but again am having difficulty working with it. Any ideas? Hard to believe that the game designers gave all these meshes...straight, various bends, and even curved pieces... what looks like identical uv map grids and they were all done individually by hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IkeCoast Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Mhahn, I think I didn't explain myself properly: The UV mapping is individual for each mesh. It's created right on the 3D software used to create the 3D mesh and is unique for each mesh. You can't take the UV mapping of one mesh and put it on another mesh. The coordinates, on the other hand, can be changed by hand (either on Blender/3DMax or via the Edit UV window in Nifskope) or using the numerical values (just use the visual Edit UV window, trust me, meddling with the numerical values is a living Hell). The fact that several meshes have "identical" UV mapping means that their individual UV maps were edited to fit one single, shared texture file. Instead of taking a texture file and edit it to adapt to the various UV mappings of various meshes, it's more easy and practical to have just one texture file and edit by hand the various UV mappings. So believe me, yes, the game developers changed individually, by hand, all those separate UV mappings so they could use the same texture file for differently shaped meshes. The Export File function on NifSkope exports the whole selected 3D mesh out of the nif file into a obj file or a DAE file that can be used in 3DSMax of Blender to edit the 3D mesh. So, if you want the other meshes in your mod to share the same texture file, you need to change the UV mapping of each one of them manually as you did with the first, to mimic the UV layout of the first. Once you know how to use Nifskope UV Editor, and the shape your UV layout has to have, it's quite easy and quick. There's no another way to do this that I am aware of. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhahn123 Posted January 26, 2014 Author Share Posted January 26, 2014 Mhahn, I think I didn't explain myself properly: The UV mapping is individual for each mesh. It's created right on the 3D software used to create the 3D mesh and is unique for each mesh. You can't take the UV mapping of one mesh and put it on another mesh. The coordinates, on the other hand, can be changed by hand (either on Blender/3DMax or via the Edit UV window in Nifskope) or using the numerical values (just use the visual Edit UV window, trust me, meddling with the numerical values is a living Hell). The fact that several meshes have "identical" UV mapping means that their individual UV maps were edited to fit one single, shared texture file. Instead of taking a texture file and edit it to adapt to the various UV mappings of various meshes, it's more easy and practical to have just one texture file and edit by hand the various UV mappings. So believe me, yes, the game developers changed individually, by hand, all those separate UV mappings so they could use the same texture file for differently shaped meshes. The Export File function on NifSkope exports the whole selected 3D mesh out of the nif file into a obj file or a DAE file that can be used in 3DSMax of Blender to edit the 3D mesh. So, if you want the other meshes in your mod to share the same texture file, you need to change the UV mapping of each one of them manually as you did with the first, to mimic the UV layout of the first. Once you know how to use Nifskope UV Editor, and the shape your UV layout has to have, it's quite easy and quick. There's no another way to do this that I am aware of. Cheers!Well this does clear things up quite a bit. Thank you Ike. I have discovered you can select multiple map nodes at once and adjust them so it is a bit faster than what I started out doing. Man what a slow tedious process though. No wonder games stay in development so long. The more I learn about modding the more respect I have for all the fantastic mods out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhahn123 Posted January 26, 2014 Author Share Posted January 26, 2014 (edited) Just to give an idea of what I am dealing with. The image shows several versions of stonewall01.nif. The foreground is stock vanilla...looks fine. The second one is also stock vanilla with no changes to mesh or texture...simply renamed and saved in nifskope...notice the gap in the texture along the top. Third is vanilla mesh and vanilla texture recolored. Fourth is one I edited the uv map on. So something is happening when I save these vanilla pieces in nifskope that allows the UV Map to be altered. No idea what the heck is causing it. I'm using stock settings and have had no trouble like this with any other meshes I've ever worked with...and that's saying a lot at this point. And this happens with ALL stonewall pieces...even the stonewall portion on vanilla farmhouse well. What's weird is that the stonewall01.nif from the Kvatch set has a different uv map layout, and it doesnt do this when retextured and saved....too bad the Kvatch set only has a few pieces or I could just work off of those. In any case once I adjust uv maps all is fine and stays that way. Guess I'll just have to do every individual piece I want to retexture. Edited January 26, 2014 by mhahn123 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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