An introduction to Blender – Let’s start modelling #4 Textures

Thursday November 1st, 2018 Monday October 5th, 2020

1 Introduction
- 1.1 In the previous article…
- 1.2 What I will show in this article
2 Let’s make it
- 2.1 How to unfold UV
- 2.2 Draw on the UV layout and apply it to the object
3 Upload model to STYLY
- 3.1 Export the model
- 3.2 Upload to STYLY
4 Terms and shortcuts in this article
- 4.1 Terms
- 4.2 Shortcuts

Introduction

In this article, I will explain the workflow to use Blender, make a simple model and upload it to STYLY, for people without any experience in modelling.

In the previous article…

In the previous article, I explained basic modelling tasks and basic operations on Blender.

Here is the previous article.↓↓↓

An introduction to Blender – Let’s start modelling ~ Part 3

I also explained how to colour the model by Material.

What I will show in this article

OK. You can now colour an object by Texture. But, for example, how can you draw a pattern?

It is Texture that you can use in that case.

This time, I explain how to apply Textures on the model.

The completed object will be a cube with some simple textures on. Although you can make it as you like, what I made is shown below as an example.

The completion image

Learn how to make this by applying Textures on a basic cube.

Let’s make it

How to unfold UV

You need to unfold the model to put textures on.

Roughly speaking, we are going to apply textures on the model by drawing pictures on the faces of the unfolded model.

It’s called ‘UV mapping’ in the modelling world.

After creating a cube, select the Edit mode, and switch to the edge-selection mode.

Firstly, mark the edges to unwrap. While imagining the cube unfolded, select the edges to unwrap so that you can unfold the cube easily. Cube is an easy example to find them, I think.

Select the edges you want to cut.

After selecting the edges, press Ctrl+E and select ‘Mark Seam‘ (Note that there is ‘Mark Sharp’ in the same menu. Don’t be confused).

Then, the selected edges turn red.

The seams have been marked.

Even after you marked the seams, you can still add more seams by selecting the edges you want to cut and ‘Mark Seams’ again.

After marking the seams, press the A key to select all, and press the U key and select ‘Unwrap’.

You cannot see any change yet. To see the unfolded cube, you need to press the ‘3D view’ icon in the bottom-left corner and select ‘UV/Image Editor’.

UV/Image Editor

The cube unfolded

It’s unfolded successfully! You can transform and move this UV layout to make your drawing task easier.

This time, it’s just a simple cube so I leave it as it is.

Draw on the UV layout and apply it to the object

Save this UV layout as an image. Select UV > Export UV Layout in the menu at the bottom to save it in your convenient location. It’s exported as a png file.

Export the UV Layout.

After saving the image, draw anything you want on it by Illustrator, Photoshop or any other tools.

As I am not good at using this kind of tools well, I just could end up with something shown below. In your case, please put more attractive patterns, texture images or photos such as a wooden surface.

I ended up with something like this…

The drawing has been finished. If you export the image at the state shown above, the lines of the UV layout would be visible on the model. So you need to hide the layer with the lines when you export a jpg file (Only jpg file works when you upload the model to STYLY. Png file is OK if you don’t upload to STYLY. By the way, some screenshots following show the case of png file. Ignore them if you upload the model to STYLY).

Go back to Blender. Firstly, assign materials. Please see the previous article to learn how to assign materials.

After assigning materials, click the texture icon next, and press the ‘New’ button.

The setting for texture

Check if ‘Image or Movie’ is set for ‘Type’ and press the ‘Open’ button to select the image you created earlier.

Select the image.

Then, the texture has been set and reflected on the cube.

The texture has been applied.

If you can’t see the texture on the cube, check if the Viewport Shading is set to ‘Material’.

Switch the Viewport Shading to ‘Material’.

If your texture has been applied incorrectly as shown below, set ‘Coordinate’ in the Mapping section to ‘UV’.

Switch Mapping’s coordinate to ‘UV’.

All is done now. If you modify the image, you just need to overwrite the image file and reload. So you can draw over and over for finer adjustment.

Reload the image

Do you understand the basic workflow to paste a texture now? That’s all for today.

This time, we used a simple cube as an example, but it will be difficult to create the UV layout for more complicated shape.

When you mark the seams on a human model, it would be easier to break down it part by part (face, body, hands and etc.).

Although it’s difficult to make UV layout, it’s essential for modelling work. So you need to get used to it. Do various modelling works to practise UV layout. Good luck!

Upload model to STYLY

Export the model

Let’s export the model and import it to STYLY!

With the completed cube selected,

Select File > Export > FBX (.fbx) in the top menu.

The Export window

The export has been completed.

Launch STYLY now.

Upload to STYLY

Upload the model to STYLY

Access STYLY and open STYLY Editor.

※How to create a new STYLY account: https://styly.cc/manual/styly-account-create/

After opening STYLY Editor, select ‘Assets > 3D Model > Upload’ to upload the model exported earlier.

Here, you need to select the fbx file and the jpg file of the texture to upload (This is why I told earlier that the png file won’t work.).

Otherwise, the texture won’t be reflected on the cube in STYLY. If you export the model as obj file, select the obj, mtl and jpg files to upload. They should work.

When the upload is completed, the ‘Status’ in the Processing Status turns into ‘Completed’.

You can find the 3D character data uploaded in My Models. Click it to place in the space.

※ How to publish the Scene: https://styly.cc/manual/scene-create-tutorial/