Hello all. I'm in my 3rd or 4th possible month in using 3DS Max in tandem with TrueSpace, and so far the modelling aspect of it has been from very challenging to focus-demanding. All's well on that account. As of now, I'm trying to make new models for Torchlight, a spiritual successor/spinoff of Diablo, designed with much moddability in mind.
My current and most headache-inducing obstacle in doing this would be UV unwrapping/mapping for textures. I've never modeled anything higher than 2000 polys, so I don't know how much easier it is to map the model's UVs than a model that's 2000 polys and below, but this one just takes me round and around, even as I've learned which important buttons do what. I've tried following a UV mapping tutorial, and it said somewhere that the checkerboard texture has to be as even and as symmetrically square as possible, but I ended up being so distracted in lining up the squares so perfectly that the UVs looked like crumpled paper, and it's pretty disorientating trying to texture because I just can't paint straight lines on it without having the texture lines deviate or distort from each polygon. I've looked at some of the meshes that Torchlight already provided, and I have to say that the mapping is done a lot better than mine, with only a scant few distortion. Something tells me that the big gap in difference is mostly due to my model's topology issues...
Anyway, I've currently given up the one line in that UV tutorial about lining up the squares perfectly, and I've decided to try mapping each bodypart and make them into squares or rectangles, just to see if it'll make it easier for me to texture. I've a feeling that the textures will be more distorted than usual, but then again this is starting to drive me insane. I've uploaded a screenshot as to what I'm doing right now.
If only I knew what the unwritten rules are in UV Mapping... I only know about the basic unwritten rules with modelling. Any feedback/help is greatly appreciated.
