Week Two:
How to Pick a Mesh
Okay now that we
have thinking about design concepts down now its time for
the real challenge, finding that perfect mesh. This week we
will go into the basic criteria of what makes a good mesh
and then delve it to the world of UV Mapping and what it all
means for the texture maker. All meshes and meshers are not
created equal, and depending on your texturing style and what
your goals are what type is ‘best’ for you will
vary.
Meshers may want
to pay particular attention to this section as I will be touching
on what you need to be thinking about to make your derivable
meshes more texturer friendly.
Vocabulary for the week
Poly:
The basic triangular face that combined together make up the
surface of the mesh.
UV mapping: Instructions for the mesh telling
it what part of the texture to render on what Poly.
Furniture Node: A spatial reference point
in a mesh’s skeleton file (xsf) that tells the client
where furniture can be placed.
VGP: The document that defines what products
are General Audience, Access Pass Only, and Unfit for IMVU.
GA: General Audience Content that IMVU deems
viewable and useable by all users 13 and up.
AP: Access Pass. Content that IMVU deems
only appropriate for those over the age of 18 AND have purchased
the Access Pass. (such as nudity, racier content, profanity,
alcohol and tobacco.)
UFI: Unfit for IMVU, items that IMVU has
deemed inappropriate for their chat environment. (such as
sexual activities, drug use, extreme violence, promoting hate)
PID: Product Identification number.
Mesh Considerations
There are several
factors to consider when picking out a mesh. Thinking about
these things before you start texturing will save you a lot
of frustrations later when you may discover that a mesh simply
cannot do what you need it to.
Make sure it is
the Parent Mesh! First and foremost make sure you are looking
at the actual source mesh and not someone’s marked up
derive of it. If you don’t know about deriving chains
yet and how they can DRAMATICALLY effect your products cost
and your profits check out my Deriving
Guide. The short of it is you want to be deriving from
the actual mesh maker, not someone who just left their product
derivable.
Cost:
Is the base mesh so expensive you won’t be able to put
a markup on it and be competitive? If it is and you’re
not just making a version just for you you may want to skip
it. Likewise is the mesh super cheap? If so will everybody
and their uncle be deriving from it or will its parent’s
low cost make it feel ‘cheap’?
File Size:
A room has to come in under 2mb, so if it is already close
to 2mb when you start you won’t have much room to play
with.
Poly Count:
A products poly count should always be considered. IMVU is
a live gaming style environment so its meshes should be constructed
with that in mind. Unfortunately this is often not the case.
The catalog is full of dense meshes that are better suited
for a rendering program such as CAD or Poser not got a game
style chat. To check a products density, you’ll have
to open it up in the Previewer and then go to the geometry
tab (enable advanced mode if you cant see it) There you can
select each part of the mesh and I will tell you its triangle
count. In the low thousands is good in the high thousands
is going to be a laggy product.
Ease of
Derivability: Has the mesh maker provided any information
to help you with the deriving process? Are the textures clearly
labeled in the previewer? Have they provided any texture maps
if the room needs them? If you are going to be spending most
of your time trying to puzzle out what is what on a mesh,
you may be better off finding another one.
How well
is the mesh UV mapped? Well be diving into UVs in
detail in a bit ;)
Are you happy with
the items layout, Scale, Seats, Poses and Node Placement?
There is no way to easily change these (only another mesher
can and its is not an easy task) so make sure before you spend
hours and hours on a room that you will be happy with the
room's bones. You can test out the seats in the Previewer,
but nodes and such are pretty much imposable to text unless
you own the mesh. If the room has derives it may be worth
skimming through a few to read the reviews to see if there
is any mention of node issues.
Use this code
http://www.imvu.com/shop/web_search.php?derived_from=######
add the products PID where the ###### is and you can see
what has been derived from a mesh. This also useful to do
to see how others have used the mesh to see its limits as
well as its possibilities in re-texturing.
Ratings
Compliance: There are many miss-rated meshes in the
catalog. Do not think for a heartbeat that just because an
item has passed through Peer Review that it meets the rules.
Peer Review DOES NOT accurately screen out misstated content
and YOU will be held financially responsible and have to issue
back refunds if you submit a derived item that is misstated
if is later flagged and re-rated. If you are developing you
should already be up to speed on the VGP. If you think an
item is borderline AP but is in GA or if you think it might
be close to UFI, really think hard if you want to take on
the financial risk of deriving from it.
Start Simple:
If this is your first room or furniture project start small.
Rooms can have dozens and dozens of textures to deal with
so its best to start with a simple room to get a feel for
how everything works before you move on to more complex projects.
IMVUinc makes some great starter rooms, with some even come
with guide textures to help in making your own textures.
UV Mapping:
This is probably
one of the most overlooked aspects of meshes by many textures
and novice mesh makers yet a mesh’s UV mapping or lack
thereof can truly make or break it as a derivable. As you
begin to make textures for rooms and furniture items you will
soon get to truly appreciate those meshers who take the extra
steps to make their products re-texturing friendly.
What is UV mapping?
UV mapping is the process in which a mesher tells the mesh
how they want it its texutres to tile or to tell it I want
this part of the texture there, and that part of the texture
there, the end result of the latter is a UV map, also sometimes
called the ‘texture map’ ‘wire frame’
‘grid map’
The UV mapping
process can literally take hours and hours, often longer than
making the mesh itself, so it is an often skimped on or even
all out ignored aspect of mesh making.
Unfortunately there
are a lot of room meshes out there that are put together quickly
and/or do not take into account a texture maker's needs. They
will have textures tiling where you really need to have detail,
texture seems it the most awkward places, and areas with complex
mapping with no maps provided to make textures with. While
these rooms will work fine for a 'slap and go' texture, for
anyone wanting to fit textures to the room they are useless.
I have had to pass up on texturing many a room because of
sloppy thoughtless UV mapping and it was this is lack of useful
UV mapping on rooms that motivated made me get into room meshing
myself.
UV mapping
Styles
I break meshes
down into to three schools of UV Mapping.
Type
One, The Non Mapped Mesh: There’s are meshes
that have no regard to how a texture is going to wrap. There
are what they are, and about all you can do with them is
slap on a simple texture or solid color and hope for the
best. Things will repeat in odd places, stretch in odd ways,
and all and all look like a mess.
Type
Two, The Tiling Mesh: These are meshes that are
designed to use seamless textures and repeat them in a gird
across their surface. Done well the repeats will be nice
and even and all line up at the seams, done poorly they
will not line up evenly, and or squish and stretch the texture
is some areas (do note: some stretching and squishing is
necessary, especially on rounded surfaces)
There is good
tiling and bad tiling… Generally for a room you’ll
want the texture to go from floor to ceiling, only tile
on the sides, and the corners of the room to align with
the end of the texture not someplace in the middle of it.
For floors and groundcovers nice even square tiling is best.
You don’t want things to be tiling so small that the
repeats become very evident (unless that is the goal.) or
be tiling so little that you need a huge texture to make
it look good.
If you are unsure
of how a room tiles you can test derive from it then put
in a texture alignment image in as your texture and it will
show you how things line up, you can make your own or use
mine. Ideally texture seams should be in logical places,
repeats evenly spaced, seams in logical places. You will
want to see how a room's textures tile before you commit
to re-texturing it.
texture alignment tester
Type
Three, The UV Mapped Mesh: These are meshes that
are mapped in such a way that they give you a pattern as
to where each element of the mesh is on the texture map.
(If you are already a clothing maker and have used a skin
or clothing template you are already aware of this style
of UV mapping.)
IMVUs head UVMap of the female Head
My UVMap of part of my piano
This is the most
versatile type of mesh map as it always you total control
over what each part of the mesh looks like, however it is
impractical file size wise to do this type of mesh mapping
on all surfaces of something as large as a room mesh. Like
the rest there are good UV maps and Bad UV maps. UV maps
should take up as much of the texture field as possible,
have relieve parts in scale and be understandable.
Which UV style of mesh is best for you?
To sum UV’s
up you can have Non Mapped meshes, Tile
Mapped meshes and UVMap Mapped meshes…
(say that ten times fast, lol).
Non Mapped
(chaos mapped) No, to barely any order. Only good with solid
colors or very simple seamless textures.
Tile Mapped (orderly mapped) requires seamless
textures or textures that a seam line is part of the look.
UVMap Mapped (custom maps) requires custom
made to fit texture work to look best. Can generally also
use seamless or solid colors but wont look as good as if
it were made to fit.
You’ll find
rooms and furniture will generally tend to fall into one of
these three categories or it will be a hybrid style with a
mix of tiling and UV mapped for details.
The question to
ask yourself then is what type of texturer are you? Are you
a ‘slap and go’ texturer, a texture user or a
texture maker?
A ‘Slap
and Go’ texturer is someone one who just
puts any image or solid color on an item with no regard
to thinking about scale, fitting, lighting and shadow, etc.
This should be wood, slap on an image of wood and it’s
done. I want this green slap on a image of green and its
done. If this is you then you can use any of the style of
meshes and get about the same results.
A Texture
User if you are someone who utilizes ready made
stock textures and for the most part uses them ‘as
is’ on a product or if you are one who wants to make
utilitarian textures that can be used on many different
products then nice even tiling products are what you want
to look for. Generally speaking while this kind of utilitarian
texture use can also be used on UVmap mapped type products
they will not look as good because those products tend to
require fitting the textures to them to sing.
Note: As long
as the textures used are from legitimate (legal) sources
using ready made content is a perfectly acceptable developing
style.
A Texture
Maker is someone who either starts from scratch
or uses legitimate image sources as raw ingredients and
from that make their own textures evolving them into something
new. If this is you then well tiled as well as well UV mapped
items are what you want to look for. UV mapped items allowing
you to add details, highlights and shadow to items that
that tiling cannot.
Where to look for meshes
IMVUDerivables:
imvuderivables.imvux.com
This is an amazing resource site maintained by KittenKat. Meshers
submit their products to be listed and if they meet the criteria
(must be an actual new mesh, not a derive).
New Mesh Group: Link
This is an IMVU group where meshers showcase their latest meshes.
Catalog and Products Forum: Link
& the AP Catalog and Products Forum: Link
New derivables are occasionally posted here. Also you may see
a derive that you may also want to try to derive from the parent
too.
Browsing the catalog: Link
Sometime just boring legwork is the best, grab a beverage, put
your feet up, and go catalog cruising. Make a ‘derivables’
folder in your internet favorites to save promising finds to.
Don’t forget to look down to that customers also bought
area, you’ll often find gems there too.
Public Rooms: Link
Some of the most popular rooms are being used as public rooms.
Also good to do just to see what folks like to use in rooms
and furniture. Right Click when in the room and view all products
to track stuff down.
Peer Review: Link
Yep Peer review is a great place to spot meshes making that
mind numbing time occasionally worthwhile, lol. You should be
able to track the parent mesh down once it has passed PR. Remember
to jot down its PID so you can look it up later.
Personal Note: Not
all meshes are going to be available for driving. Some meshers,
myself included, do a considerable amount of developing that
is exclusive, that is we make content exclusively for our own
or another developers use. Please do no INSIST that any developer
is obligated to share they’re personal content with you.
Being rude to a developer who runs their business this way is
unprofessional and uncalled for. If some tells you ‘sorry
that item is an exclusive’, be understanding not demanding.
That's it for week two. Week Three we'll start making textures!
Homework Assignment 2a Group
Pick out a three
different rooms by three different meshers that interest you
and try and figure out what type of UV mapping they used.
Is there any logical
UV mapping at all?
Does it use logical texture tiling?
Does it use UV maps? If it does did the mesher provide them?
Is it use multiple styles is it an efficient and logical mix
of those styles?
Will the choices
the mesher made help or hider you when deriving from theses
meshes?
Recall an experience
you may have had with a furniture item or product that just
couldn’t do what you wanted it to. How would UV mapping
have changed that outcome?
Homework Assignment 2b Self Study
Make your own set
of texture aliment textures, clearly label them and color
code them so you can easily tell them apart at a glance. (Id
suggest making minimally 20) Set up a folder for them in your
Previewer product files so you can have them at the ready
when deriving. When starting a room project, if the mesh doesn’t
already use alignment textures replace all of its textures
with your alignment textures so you can quickly see how the
mesh is constructed as you are working on it.
(file size note:
the previewer tends to ‘remember’ textures that
were used as placeholders or testers. So once you are all
done making your textures and are ready to submit instead
of submitting the file you were working on its best to re-derive
from the parent again and apply your final textures to it
and submit that. This will keep down unnecessary file size
bloat. There will be more on file size and texture size when
we get into actually making textures.)
Homework Assignment 2c Self Study
Find a furniture
item that uses a UV mapping and has provided a map for its
texture. Play with color coding that map to see where all
the different bits end up. Think about what details could
be added to those different areas to make it more realistic.
Different materials, trims, highlight and shadows. How would
having the ability to add those details to the mesh change
the final look as opposed to if it tiled?
