I handled the problem of getting the same texture applied to both sides of the model by cutting the model in half and emulating the other half with blender's mirror modifier. I exported the unwrap as an svg and test-colored it in Inkscape. However, I could not get the svg texture to import properly. I got the vectex plugin as recommended, but although the imported svg texture displayed ok in the texture preview window, it wouldn't display on the model, and when I tried 'render current scene' it crashed blender. o.O Possibly the plugin is not compatible with this newer version of blender. So I exported the .svg texture from inkscape as a png, then imported that to blender. After significantly more agony, I got that on the model and rendered it to get this:

I think somewhere along the way blender lost the changes I made to enlarge the ear and tail portions of the texture. All in all, Blender is possibly the most unintuitive program I have ever used. >.<

But now that I've made it work once, I can theoretically do so again. I want to hack on the model first, it overall has too many polys and specifically the feet are too narrow, and a nice big tail would be more fun. I could even stick horns on it or something. Then I'll redo the uv map from the edited model and try to make a real texture.

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So I exported the .svg texture from inkscape as a png, then imported that to blender.

Stick to png or an other image format, everything else seems to be hack :)

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All in all, Blender is possibly the most unintuitive program I have ever used. >.<

Hmm.. yes,it is. But it is the best you will get for your money. It is not the most intuitive program, but got many important features only found in other professional tools.

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...it overall has too many polys ...

Hmm, certainly depends on your target platform. On modern PC this poly count (I would guess 1.5k) is a joke.
Nevertheless, the best, but slowest, way to reduce your polycount is by hand, but there're two other options available in blender.
1. decimate modifier: The fastest and most interactive way to reduce the polycount. But it got not the best quality and sometimes it produces artifacts.
2. edit mode->mesh menu->script->poly reduction
This is a nice script which has good quality, but once you have done your reduction it is fix. Btw. you don't need to adjust your uv mapping after reduction.

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Ashaman

Ugh, now what? -_- I edited the model to put a tail on it, and it actually looks pretty good, but when I try to UV unwrap it it comes out with the tail huge and the body of the dog small. o.O

Quote: Original post by Ashaman73

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All in all, Blender is possibly the most unintuitive program I have ever used. >.<

Hmm.. yes,it is. But it is the best you will get for your money. It is not the most intuitive program, but got many important features only found in other professional tools.

True, I have heard that blender is simply the best free 3D software, so that's why I have been trying to force myself to learn how to use it rather than looking for a different software.

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...it overall has too many polys ...

Hmm, certainly depends on your target platform. On modern PC this poly count (I would guess 1.5k) is a joke.
Nevertheless, the best, but slowest, way to reduce your polycount is by hand, but there're two other options available in blender.
1. decimate modifier: The fastest and most interactive way to reduce the polycount. But it got not the best quality and sometimes it produces artifacts.
2. edit mode->mesh menu->script->poly reduction
This is a nice script which has good quality, but once you have done your reduction it is fix. Btw. you don't need to adjust your uv mapping after reduction.

--
Ashaman
I was just thinking that fewer larger polygons would be easier to texture than lots of tiny ones.

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Ugh, now what? -_- I edited the model to put a tail on it, and it actually looks pretty good, but when I try to UV unwrap it it comes out with the tail huge and the body of the dog small. o.O

You most likely forgot to adjust your seams. After editing parts of your model check all seams of the modified part.

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I was just thinking that fewer larger polygons would be easier to texture than lots of tiny ones.

You are correct if you paint each single polygon by hand ;-) In most cases you paint areas of the model, i.e. one leg, independently of the number of polygons, so the outline of each area is more important than the fact that it consists of 100k polygons.

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Ashaman

Aha, removing the existing seams and re-making them did fix it. :) So, now I have a workable UVmap to paint on. I threw some quick colors on it to see how it mapped onto the dog - looks terrible lol, way too shiny, but it looked like a dog, so that's win. :)

Sun,

Try going to CGCookie.com and watching the blender tutorial movies there, then you won't have as much trouble. There is one video where a head is unwrapped for texturing, it should help you out.

Back again with another troubleshooting question. Today I was trying out texture-painting, the kind where you paint directly on the model in the 3D view and it automatically places the colors on the UV unwrap, which can then be exported for cleanup/detailing. Anyway I discovered I seemed to have some polygons double-mapped somehow - when I painted one set (inside the ear) the other set (on top of the head) automatically got painted, and vice versa. Is this a seams problem, should I change them and re-unwrap it, or what? (I should be asking all these questions on the blender forum, but I tried to register there and haven't gotten an activation email.)

Edit: yeah it was those darn seams again, but I got it sorted out, yay me. [smile] Here's my rough draft of the texture made by painting on the model in blender. I like this way of making a rough draft of a texture a lot. :)


Now to clean up the stray white bits and add some texture to it...

[Edited by - sunandshadow on August 14, 2009 11:40:24 PM]

You have done a nice rework on the model.

As a note, if you don't already know, to smooth your model select it, go to the editing panel (bottom windon, press F9), and press "Set Smooth" in the "Link and Materials". To got back to your current look, press "Set Solid".

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Ashaman

Some free models:

Tree Frog

Morphing Python

Sea Dragon

Spuggles

Creeper