Looking for old tutorial - Texturing a Cone

[jsiggia]

Hello everyone,

I remember such an example here on the forum quite a while back, anyone have this tucked away somewhere?

I have some good photos I took of Apollo 11's CM, & I'm going to try and apply them to the Smithsonian's model.

 

Thanks,

Joe

[Andrew West]

I remember it but  I can't find it either.  I went and created a cone of sorts to see what I could do.  I did not find it easy using the new texture tools so I went back to the legacy mapping tool,  applied cubic mapping first and then switched to parametric.  This is what I got:

[jsiggia]

Thanks Andrew.

 

I found Tech's post from 2007 but the file link is dead. The text is very helpful, file would be nice.

 

http://www.formz.com/forum/old/messages/16/18437.html

 

Joe

[johnalexander1571]

Hi Joe,

You will find funny that I recall writing that post. Lot of folks don't know that support was a room full of people on the phone all day and solving forum posts back then...

And I'm sure I'll recall little about the details of doing that one. I recall it was an ice cream cone in that instance.

I sure hope you don't have to go through all that to map your module. You might want to send me your files or some part of them so this can be figured out. I suspect you'll need some good UV's or even a dedicated app if you are going to be serious about this.

[johnalexander1571]

I am sure it can be done in formZ tho, it may just take some tricks.

[jsiggia]

Hi John,

I had a feeling that might be yours. Yes, it was indeed an ice cream cone. I would come across it once in a while in my files, but now it think it's gone. 

I'm thinking parametrics along with unfolding, but a UV interface would be best (wish Z had one). 

The model from NASM came with image maps but I could never get them imported correctly. The files are huge.

Any UV interfaces stand out in your experience?

Great talking to you again.

 

Joe

 

[johnalexander1571]

Hi Joe,

I was hoping to take a look at the model to see just what your up against. I did a Curtiss P40 maps in formZ but I made one for each riveted panel, just like the real plane. I was wondering if a slice/n/map approach might work here, or you want the whole cone laid out nicely as single map so you can cut stuff out of your photos and paste them into the right spots. Since you have so much distortion to deal with, which PS can do to some extent, I was really hoping doing a lot of manageable panels would be a better result. I assume this is for fun/historical reference and doesn't have a real deadline, so why not do it in a more direct fashion. Maybe you can put the file up in a dropbox somewhere. It really depends on the model and how it was made what you are going to need to do here. I don't think you need another app to map one model, there is always a way.

Edited April 5, 2021 by johnalexander1571

[jsiggia]

I pulled out the shell here & I will need to cut away the heat shield & trim away the lip running around the tunnel entrance.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rletz5uonnwaol2/CM-only shell.fmz?dl=0

 

Thanks John,

Joe

[johnalexander1571]

Hi Joe,

 

I got the newer version message. I use 8.6 we still haven't quite got to 9 yet.

[jsiggia]

Oops, try this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x3mx5mnj6j74c30/CM-only shellV8.fmz?dl=0

 

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by jsiggia

[johnalexander1571]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for posting. This geometry is an entirely different animal than formZ can easily handle. Although obviously not exactly raw scan data, there are way too many polys to work with.  The structure is nice, and mapping it would simply be a big job and would rightly be done be an experienced texture master in either ThreeDCoat, or MODO like program. One thing is that there is maybe an existing map you could paste your images onto?

I would think too if  this is a historical enterprise it's too bad you couldn't get some sort of scan data for geometry from the real capsule. If you can go back, look into scanning it like they do for sketchfab. I would think this a better direction perhaps than redoing the maps for this model. Just my thoughts.

 

[johnalexander1571]

I mean, there is only that ONE module. Way cool.