Ok so here we go. This time were going to work with a TIRE!
Not a beautiful tire, but a tire nonetheless so let's get to it.
If were going to UV map this object we need to give it a material.
Then we need to give it a texture. Notice here I called mine "Bump" it's because I'll be using it as a bumpmap, but if you need a specular map and an albedo map you'll need to add them in as well, that is why names are important.
Then we need to tell Blender that we'll be using UV coordinates with this/these texture(s). Note: If you've added more than one texture make sure to set them all to UV or else it won't work.
Now comes the hard part, mostly because you have more than one choice. You can try and ask Blender to UV map the thing for you, which could work. For this go to edit mode "Tab", select all vertices "A" and then press "U" and click "Unwrap". There are other options available such as "Smart Projection", "Cube Projection", ... If one doesn't work try some other ones that might fit your case.
Another technique which I had described in my other tutorial with the cube (i wont repost all the images, I'll just recap it if you want the full version CLICK HERE). And so what you can do is to split your screen and have on one side the 3d view and on the other side the UV map editor. And as you go you select one face of your mesh place it as you with on the texture map, and repeat until all the face are mapped. Depending on the complexity of your mesh this could take very long.
Another way to do it is to use seams. This is what I did with my tire. Seams tell Blender where to "cut open" your mesh in order to lay it flat.
To create a seam go into edge selection mode, then select the right edges. Once the edges are selected turn them into seams.
For this particular case I choose the following edges:
Once you're done choosing your seams, press "U" and click "Unwrap".
I won't go over in detail the Blendigo part of the process , I feel it was explained well enough the first time around. So again I will simply overview it, and if you need a more detailed explanation follow the link up above.
When you're ready to choose your Indigo material settings go to the "Script" window. In earlier versions of blendigo the link is found under "Export" in later versions it is under "Render".
Go to the materials tab and choose the correct category of materials. The things you have to pay attention to are "UVset" which is found in the Blender Editing tab "F9" under "Mesh". Dont forget to set the path to your texture file.
Also, if your UVset is called something other than "uv" and you try to preview your mat you will get an error. So for previews set it back to "uv" for a full render put it to whatever it was originally.
Well I hope that wasn't too tedious and hopefully it was clear enough to be understood. Good luck
-Borg
