Kitchen
 

I'm going to try and texture one of my past projects so I've decided to go with a kitchen. It just looks like it wouldn't be too difficult to texture. I was going to learn texturing a while back but got sidetracked with other stuff. Hopefully I'll stick to it this time. I know some basics so hopefully it will be enough but any and all help is appreciated. Here's the kitchen I'm going to texture.

I didn't see the image so trying to post image again.

Floor, Walls, Rug, Carpet, & Baseboards

AWESOME!!! DO IT. You'll be happy you did. I'll help as much as I can if you have any questions about UVs. I don't know a ton but hopefully I can help.

Thanks Rhetoric, my first question is on items that need to be smoothed, do I map them before I smooth or after?

Looking forward to this Perfecto, I could be wrong, but I think you need to smooth first, as the texture may come out weird if you map it first, then smooth.
Would be glad to get this verified from someone else as I'm not 100% sure, I just remember trying it the other way once and the texture looked crap when I smoothed it later.
Either way, good luck!

I took your advice Dango77 and smoothed first, thx. Here's my table.

I'm with Dango on this. If you layout the UV's then smooth it will throw off your UV's.

Map BEFORE, then smooth. There are some options when smoothing, like if you want preserve geometry borders, hard edges etc. play with that.

yeah, turn smooth UVs off in the smooth.

Might be best smoothing during render. Then you can keep your scene nice and light, plus it make it easy to edit and make large changes to the UVs if you notice something later.

Thank you everyone. I'll remap the table legs. Right now they're mapped after I smoothed but I can go back to the low poly and remap as suggested.

Really, smoothing AFTER laying out the UVs? Can anyone explain why? It seems to me that it would alter the UVs you've laid out. I'm not saying everyone else is wrong, just curious is all.

Perfecto, sorry I was wrong. Apparently I've been doing it wrong too, although lately I just smooth my objects by hitting 3 on the keyboard.

preserve geometry border option :) that should help

Cool, sorry for the mis-information Perfecto, but I'm glad to know the right way now, thanks to those that explained!

Isn't it the correct way to smooth? *GASP* That's how I always do it. What is the correct way? (been using maya for two weeks now..)

3 is a smooth preview, it doesn't actually change the geometry. To do an "actual" smooth, you'll have to go mesh > smooth, and you can change the number of divisions etc.
3 is a lot easier to undo, and I think it provides a similar result, although it's not really hard-meshed in. (Coining the term hard-meshed).

Nice render already ;) good luck with the uv's.
Oh and don't think that texturing this one will be easy at least not if your goal is to paint the textures as nice as the models...( yes that is a compliment... ;) ).
My advice would be to start with a basic color palette and then build up texturing from there, looking forward to see some texturing ( edit:) done

Cabinets. I think I'll need to separate and rotate the uvs for the top and bottom front faces of the cabinets because the wood grain runs vertically on the sides and horizontally on the bottom and top. I mapped out the uvs in such a way that I can use a single texture of wood and then when applied, the grains will all be running the correct direction.

Here's a test render to see what the wood will look like.

ahhhh simply perfect :)

Lovely ;)
( I type this because I got a message :' Message is to short ' ...LOL )

what are the horizontal scratches? are they just in the texture?

Yeah, the side scratches are just part of the texture I found. However, I don't think I'm going to use the texture after all. I'm going to grab my camera and go out and take pictures to make all my own textures. I didn't think I would like texturing so I was always trying to take the easy road and either not texture at all or just add some colors but now that I'm doing it, I'm really getting into it.

The small cabinet

Having trouble figuring out how to map the knobs. I'll skip them for now and continue on. Anything I have trouble with, I'll come back to once I finish everything else. I also notice that there's a seam that needs to be sewn near the oven handle on the right, just inside the vent hole on the right side. Didn't notice it until I took the screenshot. Not sure how I'm going to lay out the uv's yet so I'll post a uv layout screenshot later, probably after I figure out what I'm going to do with the knobs.

I do not envy you having to UV map all that, looks great so far though.

I like the render and texture, maybe too many horizontal scratches, but It will probably work when the whole scene is put together. I suppose you're going for the used looked, not a studio style job... which is cool.

Thanks Mayaniac, I'm really not sure what look I'm going to go with yet. The model is a model of my kitchen. Not sure if I'll texture it the same or something else. The cabinet texture I posted is very similar to the cabinets I have except my cabinets are darker. I like the idea of a "used" look though. Hopefully I can do it justice.

I decided to work on the uv's for the stove knobs and this is the best I can do. Hard to believe I spent almost 3 hours on just a knob. That's about how long I spent on mapping the whole stove. At least I know how to half decently map an odd shape like that now.

Here's a screenshot, I'll lay out the Stove Uv's and post a screenshot once I finish.

Here's the Stove Uv Layout.

Question: Since different parts of my stove have different types of surfaces (ie. plastic, glass, metal, chrome, etc) do I need to have a separate uv layout for each type of surface?

Every time I look at this thread it reminds me of how much I hate doing uv's :)
Looks nice though.
With regards to your question I think it's wise to even keep different parts/materials a different piece of geometry and most definite keep different materials and such, it makes it easier to tweak and adjust stuff .

Thanks mastone, I took your advice and re-layed out my stove uvs according to parts and materials.

Here's the Fridge.

Very nicely modeled scene, looks like a bit of work left on the UV's though :P You going for the realistic look since you're taking photos for textures I take it. Was just thinking that model could look really cool with some cartoon shading as well. Good luck on the project!

Thanks BrianM and yeah I'm going for a realistic render on this one. I think lighting will be the most challenging part of it though and that's where I'll most likely need the most help with. I've already started combing the internet for as much info on lighting as I can find. From what I can tell, you can have good texturing and modeling but if the lighting isn't right, the realism is really going to suffer.

There are some folks here that have a good eye for lighting and shading so that will help alot. I figure as long as I listen to everyones input, I won't be able to get away with crappy lighting haha.

Since your lighting your own kitchen it shouldn't be that much trouble ...look at the existing lightsources ( a central light on the ceiling, a window, some TL lights under the cupboards etc) and mimick them, i.e. analyse what kinda lights they are( spot light, pointlight etc). keep in mind that indoor lights are mostly yellow tinted so change the colortint on the lights, light from outside ( that comes in the kitchen) is a bit more diffuse and tend to give either a blueish or greyish tinted light dependant on the weather if it is very sunny you can add yellowish directional light to mimick the sun

Thanks mastone, that will help.

Here's the chairs.

Hi Perfecto
Try keeping the box texture the same size, if you are using the same texture the grain will look bigger in some parts.....hope that helps.........dave

ok, I think I see what you mean. The checkerboard pattern needs to be the same for all parts of the chair right?

Yes that is what I mean, give it a try on your chair as it is you should notice the differance.......dave

Thanks Dave for the awesome tip. Here's the chair with the uv's resized.

Thanks Perfecto
I dont think its quite awesome it just makes sence if you think about it.............dave