Morphography tutorials
UV Mapping and More
• Index • Introduction • Some Basics • Another Fine Mesh • All the Trimmings • Feel the Width • UV Mapping and More • Pose-Ability • Final Fitting •

Now it's time to break out UVmapper. The Pro version is nicer, but it's perfectly feasible to work with the free Classic version. See UVmapper.com for details.

UV mapping

Here we have a bit of the UVmapper Classic screen. The first thing to do is generate UV co-ordinates so that the clothing can be textured; a cylindrical mapping in the Y axis is appropriate here, so that's what I've selected. In fact, the morphing tube has this mapping applied already; if I had used the tube without adding bits to it, that map would be sufficient.

As well as not being an Anim8or tutorial, this is also not going to be a UVmapper tutorial - there's one of those here, anyway...

The naming of parts - part 1

The second thing to do with UVmapper is... not UV mapping. It's the grouping. In other words, we split up the mesh into body parts which correspond to the figure to which the clothing is going to be conformed. This doesn't have to be exact, but we need to see roughly where the figure's body parts are in relation to the clothing mesh.

So, open up Poser again, and this time bring in the base figure from the library palette. To make it fit the clothing mesh, which is not conforming at this point, open the Joint Parameters window, select the figure (any part), and click on the "ZeroFigure" button.

Now you can import your clothing mesh as before, with all the boxes unchecked. It should fit reasonably well, but don't worry if it isn't perfect; that isn't the point of this exercise.

The naming of parts - part 2

Set the clothing OBJ's display mode to hidden line so you can see where the actual facets are.

Move the cursor to highlight the body part you're interested in; the hip in this example. Vicki's hip is quite a complex shape, so that's a good place to begin.

Now the tedious bit begins. Using the mesh as a grid, we transfer the rough shape of the body part to the template in UVmapper by counting the facets.

The naming of parts - part 3

Here's the traditional cop-out, beloved of generations of British children's TV presenters. All together now...

"Here's one we made earlier!"

This was done by selecting an area of the mesh, then using UVmapper's assign to group command. Remember that you have to spell the group names exactly the same as Poser does, down to the uppercase / lowercase (which can appear strange if you're not used to the conventions of software writing). I'll give you a list of body parts later on.

You also have to make sure that there aren't any stray facets which haven't been assigned to anything. I usually start by selecting the whole mesh, then assigning it to the most complicatedly shaped group: the hip in this case.

I've set UVmapper to display color by group, and you can see the groups that have been assigned here.

Finishing up

All that remains now is to save the model to a folder in your Poser4:Runtime:Geometries folder. You can then proceed to the pose-ability section, because I know you're dying to see this thing in action. :-) However, if your curiosity has got the better of you, scroll down for the answers to some questions that may have cropped up...

Next

Next: Pose-Ability

Body parts (ewww!)

Here's a list of the body parts taken from Vicki's CR2.

hip
abdomen
chest
neck
upNeck
head
leftEye
rightEye
rCollar
rShldr
rForeArm
rHand
rThumb1
rThumb2
rThumb3
rIndex1
rIndex2
rIndex3
rMid1
rMid2
rMid3
rRing1
rRing2
rRing3
rPinky1
rPinky2
rPinky3
lCollar
lShldr
lForeArm
lHand
lThumb1
lThumb2
lThumb3
lIndex1
lIndex2
lIndex3
lMid1
lMid2
lMid3
lRing1
lRing2
lRing3
lPinky1
lPinky2
lPinky3
rButtock
rThigh
rShin
rFoot
rToe
lButtock
lThigh
lShin
lFoot
lToe

And here it is as a text file, if you want to cut-and-paste from it: bodyparts.txt.

Hey! What happened to the buttocks?

I was hoping nobody would ask that. But there's always one sharp-eyed nuisance. :-)

You're right. The group assignment does go straight from hip to thigh with no buttocks; although Vicki has them, I've missed them out. Lots of modellers do this for skirts; it makes them work better, is the simple answer. Posette has no buttock groups, so this won't apply anyway for her clothes.

Hey! I thought you had to separate the thighs?

Now, you really do know too much. This is also correct; Poser doesn't like "three-way welds". That is, there should normally be a thin strip of hip group between the two thighs - Poser doesn't like it otherwise, and the mesh will tear when you pose it. Unfortunately, doing it this way means that a skirt won't pose properly when the figure sits down; you get a little bit (the thin strip of hip group) which pops up and makes a mess of your pose. The adjoining thighs grouping gets rid of that.

See Bloodsong's tutorial Having Illegitimate Children in Poser for more details. Suffice it to say that I am going to be using Bloodsong's work-around also; if you make the mesh as we have done here, then group it up, this seems to work quite well.

Next

Next: Pose-Ability

• Index • Introduction • Some Basics • Another Fine Mesh • All the Trimmings • Feel the Width • UV Mapping and More • Pose-Ability • Final Fitting •