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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#1 Old 24th Mar 2009 at 2:17 AM Last edited by Rapsheba555 : 13th May 2009 at 1:59 AM.
Tutorial: How to UV Map a Sphere
HOW TO UV MAP A SPHERE

Heya. Today I'm going to show you how to UV Map a sphere. We've all seen things in-game like globes where the poles are either swirly or choppy, right? I'm going to show you how to avoid this. Let's get started. I'm assuming you know the basics of how milkshape works and I won't be explaining basic operations. Please also not that this tutorial was written for milkshape, and other programs may behave differently. PLEASE NOTE THIS TECHNIQUE WILL NOT WORK WITH GEOSPHERES. What we're going to do is make it look like the sphere on the right:



Step 1.

First, we need to make a sphere. For my purpose, i'm using a high poly sphere with 10 stacks and 12 slices. This process is the same with lower poly spheres though.



Step 2.

Now what we need to do is make 2 duplicates of this sphere by hitting Edit>Duplicate Selection twice in your bar at the top.



Step 3.

Here we want to hide these two duplicates so that we're working ONLY with the original sphere.



Step 4.

Now that we have just the main sphere showing, we need to delete the vertexes at the very poles. At this stage make sure you're in front-view mode. I've been in it all along, but you might want to double check.



Step 5.

Next we need to hide the original sphere, and unhide the first (only the first) duplicate. What we're going to do with this sphere is delete all the vertexes below the first row beneath the northern pole vertex.



Step 6.

It should now look like this:



Now we hide the first duplicate and unhide the second duplicate, and perform the same operation we did on the first duplicate only this time for the other pole.



Step 7.

Now you can unhide all the groups. You'll want to check each of them by hiding and unhiding them each in succession to make sure you didn't miss any vertexes.



Step 8.

Now we have to get to UV mapping. Find the texture you want to use and assign it to all of the groups. It will look funky, but don't worry, we'll fix that. For this purpose I'll be using a checkerboard pattern. Not counting the two pole pieces, my sphere has 8 stacks:



So my texture for this part will have 8 rows of checkers. The poles will converge on themselves and will have one row. Here's how it looks without mapping:



Something wrong here, right? Well, let's open up the texture mapper and go to our main sphere.

Step 9.

Your map for the main sphere should show up. See how it doesn't line up with the checkered pattern? What you want to do is just nudge it around and scale it until it does. It will look like this after you do that:



Step 10.

Now, see how this makes it look?



Yay! But we still have to fix those poles. Now here's where you have to get sneaky. Open up the texture mapper again and go to your first duplicate. This should be the top pole. Go over to the toolbar and open up the drop-down menu. Select "Top" and hit the Remap button next to it. you should now have something like this:



See that pinwheel near the bottom? What we want to do is the same thing we did with the main sphere, only this time we want to line up the two pinwheel shapes like so:



Step 11.

Now we repeat that process with the other pole, only with a twist. Once you have the pinwheels lined up, you need to go to rotate mode, and rotate the entire thing so that every section moves over one block.

Step 12.

Now we close the texture mapper and, look! It's all fixed! Here what we do is select all the groups and hit "Regroup." Now we're done! I've attached the mesh file and the texture so you can study them, if you like.







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Tutorials:How to UV Map a Spherewiki
Attached files:
File Type: zip  Rapsheba555tutorial-spheremesh.zip (69.6 KB, 119 downloads) - View custom content

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Zombie Socks
#2 Old 24th Mar 2009 at 2:57 AM
Aaaaaa! I am so happy! You made me a tutorial! :lovestruc

This is so awesome! Thank you! I can't wait to try this out! And I know just what my first project will be! *rubs hands together gleefully*

Nintendork Island | Please call me WWW!| Despite what avatar says, loves all of mts <3
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#3 Old 24th Mar 2009 at 3:11 AM
oh boy.

"When life gives you lemons, see the lemons, feels the lemons, BE THE LEMONS!"

Take a look-see, hmm...? Go on, click them:
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Wiki Wizard
#4 Old 26th Mar 2009 at 5:56 PM
yay Rap! You have now done 3 tutorials! You are so immense and awesome!


It's ok, we all laugh-snort occasionally!
Check out some of my other stuff here.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#5 Old 26th Mar 2009 at 11:09 PM
Though still no video tuts because no one will tell me what programs will work right... *cough cough*

"When life gives you lemons, see the lemons, feels the lemons, BE THE LEMONS!"

Take a look-see, hmm...? Go on, click them:
The Super Mario Project, Nintendorks Island-Celebrating 2 Years Online!
Theorist
#6 Old 12th May 2009 at 11:58 AM
wow... you're smart...
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#7 Old 13th May 2009 at 12:39 AM
aww, thanks. :D

"When life gives you lemons, see the lemons, feels the lemons, BE THE LEMONS!"

Take a look-see, hmm...? Go on, click them:
The Super Mario Project, Nintendorks Island-Celebrating 2 Years Online!
Pettifogging Legalist!
retired moderator
#8 Old 13th May 2009 at 1:10 AM
Just a heads-up for blender users: in blender this is a bit different, there's no need to duplicate stuff or anything. Select everything except the poles, unwrap as Sphere from View in front view, then select the faces on top and bottom (adjacent to the poles), unwrap as Sphere from View in top view. (both assuming the axis of the sphere is Z)

Dunno, perhaps it would be good to state in the title which editor this is written for? The method in the OP would certainly *also* work in blender but it would be needlessly complicated. Thanks =).

Stuff for TS2 · TS3 · TS4 | Please do not PM me with technical questions – we have Create forums for that.

In the kingdom of the blind, do as the Romans do.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#9 Old 13th May 2009 at 1:58 AM
Ah, nice catch, let me go get that.

"When life gives you lemons, see the lemons, feels the lemons, BE THE LEMONS!"

Take a look-see, hmm...? Go on, click them:
The Super Mario Project, Nintendorks Island-Celebrating 2 Years Online!
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