UVW Mapping Made Easy 102:  Multi-Sub Object Mappings

Welcome to the new and improved Studio-Erebus tutorials!  This is part of a new series of tutorials dealing with both new, and previous topic matters ; however whether new or old it will be much more graphically intense, more detailed and hopefully the best you can find out there on the topics I cover.  You may have seen my previous work on PlanetQuake.com  under the "Quake Skin Tutorials" where I wrote with the online handle of Slaine. Same old me, but brand new site and tutorials.

If you were re-directed to this site you can find a index of all my tutorials here.

What is a "Multi-Sub Object Mapping"? 

This is when you have one object - that needs multiple skins.  Sometimes there are technical reasons your game engine might want this. Other times it may be easier for your organizational needs for skinning.  Usually someone will have pointed out that you need to use these and you should be aware of it - and thats why you went looking for a tutorial like this.


Lets get into it.

Following the screenshot instructions.

1) Go to the modifier tab (make sure your object is selected of course)
2) enter "Face' edit mode.
3) Right click on the name of the view port
4) Assure that 'Edged Faces" is selected - this assures your faces you choose will highlight in red so you can see what you are doing.

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Now that your ready go ahead and select some faces.  You should already have an idea what faces you want to go into a sub material. In this example I am using a barbell and I will make the bar and the weights each have their own sub-material. As you see I have highlighted 3 spots - particular I swiped over the ends to make sure I got the endcaps on the bars.

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Ok now the bar is selected - in the modifier rollout you need to scroll down far enough to see the "Surface Parameters" section  and if neccesary expand it by clicking on the "+" icon.  If it is already expanded it will change to a "-" icon so you can collapse it if needed.


Now that you can see the correct section - its labeled "Material"  and has a box called "ID"   go ahead and change it to an appropriate number.  I usually start with 1 - there may be reasons occaisonally to choose others - you should know why if you have that need.

So basically any face selected will be assigned to the group you set right now.

As a side tip - this is the same place you can assign smoothing groups. Some times sub materials may have a need to have the same smoothing group so I wanted to point this out while we are here.

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Good - now youve done your first material id.  Time to do the second - here I have highlighted the barbells. It took me several mouse swipes. 

TIP: Holding the control key while you select areas allows you to add to the selection. If you do not hold "control" down it will deselect your previous selection as you go to make a new one.

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Ok so now we do the same thing - but choose a different number.  Usually the next one in sequence - for this example #2.  If for any reason you make 2 groups have the same id - they will use the same skin.   Normally this defeats the purpose of  multi-sub object mappings but occaisonally you might have special needs. Otherwise avoid that.

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 Ready for more?   On to page two!