You now have an unfolded
UV mesh with no major overlapping faces. However, there are still
a few minor problem areas where the mesh overlaps itself (particularly
the eyes and mouth).
You can use the Smooth
UV Tool to fix small imperfections in the shell with targeted
unfolds or relax operations.
To fix the eyes
- In the perspective view, right-click
the soldier’s head and select Edge from the
pop-up menu.
- -select
the four closest edge loops that surround each eye. You can do this
quickly by +
double-clicking one edge in each loop.
- In the UV Texture Editor, +
right-click the UV mesh and select To UV from
the pop-up menu.
The edges selected around
the eyes are converted to the UVs selected around the eyes.
- Click the Smooth UV Tool icon
( ).
- Drag the Relax control
to the right until the eyes appear round.
As you drag the Relax control,
the selected UVs relax until they are round.
Now you can fix the nose
and mouth in a similar manner.
To fix the nose
- Select a group of UVs on and around the
nostrils.
- Drag the Relax control
to the right until the UVs stop moving.
To fix the mouth
- In the perspective view, -click
the head and select Edge from the pop-up menu.
- -select
the 4 edge loops around the mouth. You can do this quickly by +
double-clicking one edge in each loop.
- In the UV Texture Editor, +
right-click the UV mesh and select To UV from
the pop-up menu.
The edges selected around
the mouth are converted to the UVs selected around the mouth.
- Drag the Relax control
to the right until the UVs stop moving.
The mouth UVs even out into a circular shape.
- Select all the UVs on the head.
- Select the Scale Tool and
scale the UVs so that they fit in the upper right corner of the
UV space.
The UV mesh for the soldier’s
head now has no UV faces overlapping. This allows you maximum control
over what shows up in each portion of the head when you create the
texture map for the soldier.
As with the rest of the
body, you can now output these UV meshes to an external file to
paint a texture on them. For information about how to do this, see
Outputting UVs.