Help! Can someone help me make a UV map?

[LivewareCascade]

Hey all, I've gone out of my mind trying to find a decent G36E for FO3 or NV, the only one I could find was Chambermade's offering here.

 

While the model seems really good, I was thinking of doing a retexture of the model. I'm alright with photoshop, so I reckon I'll be alright with the actual texturing, but the problem is I don't really have a baseline to start off with. The dds provided in that file is extremely flat and smooth. Basically, it's impossible to tell where the parts of the weapon are because it's just all...grey. Uniform grey, apart from a few highlights for the knobs and screws.

 

So I figured what I need is a decent UV map export and this is where I'm completely defeated. I have no idea how to make one, and for some reason, Blender keeps crashing. I really need some help with this, and I was hoping one of the experienced modellers/texturers would be willing to help me out with my predicament. I'd like to retexture from scratch because Chambermade hasn't been active since May, and provided no reply AFAIK to the last modder who tried to fix his nif. Therefore, I don't have any permission to directly modify his texture, and I'd rather just make my own texture and then send it to him to see if he'd like to include it in his own release. To give you an idea of where I'd like to get, I was thinking of getting to a UV map at the beginning stages of this tutorial

[greywaste]

you want to get something like his output from max ? or you just want any UV map to work with? If any will do, nifskope can do that.

[LivewareCascade]

you want to get something like his output from max ? or you just want any UV map to work with? If any will do, nifskope can do that.

 

If by "his", you mean the original author, then no, I just need...well, I thouth I needed UV's. I'm new to this scene, so I apologise if I mess up

 

Basically, I know that once I've got some kind of reference points that allow me to look at a texture and work out what different parts of the gun are, I am happy to use Photoshop there. I'm comfortable with the actual painting of the textures to give the final textured finish. I just don't know how I'd go about getting from the absolute mess that I currently see when I use Nifskope to auto-generate the UVs to something where I could actually be at a point where I'm saying "Oh, that's the receiver, I can see that from the texture map, that's the fire selector" etc.

 

Now, in Millenia's video, he's shown quite clearly that he has a simple enough map where the parts are easily identified by eye (it's the point where he says he's seen so many of them that he's gotten used to it, owtte). That's kinda the stage I'm wanting to be at, I guess.

[MrDave]

If you open the model in NifSkope, you can select it, right click and mouse over Texture, then select Export to export the UVW map. Save it to your desktop so you can find it easily. Open the original texture and the UVW map you just exported. On the UVW, copy it and paste it on top of the texture. In the layers tab, change the blending mode (says Normal by default) to Multiply. This will make only the black wireframe show. If you prefer, change the blending mode to Screen and then hit CTRL I to invert the colors for a white wireframe. May work better for a dark weapon. Work under this in layers as you normally would.

[LivewareCascade]

If you open the model in NifSkope, you can select it, right click and mouse over Texture, then select Export to export the UVW map. Save it to your desktop so you can find it easily. Open the original texture and the UVW map you just exported. On the UVW, copy it and paste it on top of the texture. In the layers tab, change the blending mode (says Normal by default) to Multiply. This will make only the black wireframe show. If you prefer, change the blending mode to Screen and then hit CTRL I to invert the colors for a white wireframe. May work better for a dark weapon. Work under this in layers as you normally would.

 

Thanks, I'll do that.