In this video, I walk you through my workflow for UV mapping a fuel tank. It’s a process that’s pretty straightforward, however there are many variations in the technique.
I didn’t just decide to create a UV mapping tutorial about a fuel tank; it was created in response to a question by my friend Mirko who asked about the way I attack this specific challenge. In the video below we look at a few approaches to mapping the tank. First we look at the concept of breaking the tank’s UVs into multiple shells to minimize distortion. We then take a look at what happens if you try to keep the tank as a contiguous mesh. Finally we look at splitting the tank along predefined edges to find a happy medium between the two approaches.
A note about “unwrap” and “relax”:
When recording the video above, I found myself using the words “unwrap” and “relax” interchangeably. This is simply me mixing up the terms and usually when working in the Relax UV panel and I say “unwrap”, I really mean “relax”.
The fuel tank used is actually the tank created for my Generic Sport Bike model on TurboSquid.
Here are a few stills from the screencast
lecosechenonso
Great tutorial, thanks!
Am I the only one not finding the “use texture axis mode” button anymore on the R14?
Jamie Hamel-Smith
This caught me off guard as well. It seems there’s only one texture tool now, but you can switch between axis mode or normal mode by using the axis toggle (the L key). So the L key works in Model Mode, Polygon Mode, Texture Mode, etc.
lecosechenonso
Cheers, that helped
Julian Oczkowski
by far the best tut on the subject!
Paul Campbell
Nice tutorial. Does Cinema 4D have something similar to Live Unwrap shown in this video: vimeo(dot)com/21943368 ?
Jamie Hamel-Smith
I’m not sure. I don’t think it does.
DesignerLukeFX
Jack Osbourne, wow your good at Cinema 4D
Jamie Hamel-Smith
SHARRRRRRRON!
But seriously, assuming this is a comment on my accent then see my “Ducati 999 Rear Tire Tutorial” to see what I sounded like before I moved to the states.
Andrei Guzun
thank you ,, very interesting tutorial for uv
kesmeby
I’ve watched a bunch of C4D UV mapping tutorials on YouTube and this is by far the best one I’ve seen. By the way, when you were snapping the points together manually, it looks like the UV Terrace command will do what you’re looking for there. Just select all the points you want to snap together and hit UV Terrace.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Thanks! I’m glad you approve. You are in fact the third person to tell me about the UV Terrace feature. I’ve been mentioning it in my Razorback screencasts since folks taught me the tool. Thanks for the tip! It reminds me of the phrase “Docendo discimus” (by teaching, we learn). I really appreciate all the great feedback ^.^
Noel Wiggins
fantastic screen-cast!, thank you so much for taking us on a tour into your workflow, I went from be utterly confused to now being as excited as you to “uncover” my models, I can’t express my gratitude enough
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Thanks! I’m glad you found it useful, and I’m always open to sharing my workflows.
1raskumar
spasibo
Daniel nardi
Thank you for this great tut!
I was wondering if you have a good technique to unwrap 3d text in cinema 4D.
I’ve been searching for something like that all over the net and cannot find any..
I know it may seem a simple task compared to unwrapping a 3d complex model, but somehow i cannot do it right…
I figured that if you want to create realistic textures and apply them on text in cinema 4d the normal projection won’t do the job, and the best way to go is UV mapping…
Hope you can enlighten me with your expertise ..:)
Thanks for your help and sharing your knowledge in your tutorials!!
D
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Hi Daniel,
There’s actually a great Greyscale Gorilla Tutorial on this topic. I don’t think it talks about UV mapping, but there’s some good info in there anyway.
I’ll email you to find out more about what you’re thinking of with the UV mapping technique. Maybe I’ll be able to offer some insight.
Milo Mi
Thanks Jamie, This was great.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
I’m really glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for your comment.
sircharlesgraham
Absolute class.
Divinxu
Incredibly helpful. Learned quite a bit. Will have to rewatch it because you are obviously more experienced and i have to look exactly where you click (was not familiar with the v shortcut), but that sure was helpful! Thanks
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Some of my newer Five Minute Tip videos have keyboard shortcut overlays. You should check those out (a lot of them are very basic however).
catfishy08
As a beginner, your tutorial was brilliant – clear, informative and got the job done brilliantly. Thanks for taking the time for this tutorial!
Jamie Hamel-Smith
I’m so happy to hear that! I’m always trying to get more folks interested in 3D, so I’m a fan of beginners.
Jomatecc
I avoided UV mapping at all cost until I watched this video, thanks much for the contribution greatly appreciated.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
No problem! I’m glad you liked it.
bobwalmsley1
Excellent tutorial Jamie, Thank you.
In the example fuel tank exercise, how would you export your final maps to photoshop?
Would you use the BodyPaint SetUp Wizard at the beginning of your workflow, or is there a manual way at the end?
Jamie Hamel-Smith
There’s a command that can help. Once you create a new texture, and assign it to one of the channels, you can choose: Layer > Create UV Mesh Layer and it will make a layer with the wireframe mesh on it.
Once you’ve done that, you can save the file as a .psd and work on it in Photoshop.
bobwalmsley1
That’s great, thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
solomanpro
Great tutorial! The command you need for stitching the points is UV Terrace under UV Commands. Just select both columns of points and click the button.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Thanks for the tip. A few folks have pointed me to that great command since the video was published. Thanks so much for the feedback, and for sharing the info. I love the conversations that these videos can create
teamformsvacka
Thanks Jamie!
This was very helpful, its hard to find good info about this subject.
WaveCG
Since you love unwrapping so much maybe I should send you all my meshes and you can go bananas.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Nice try, but I’ll pass on that
stevep67
Excellent tut! I do a lot of product (bottles/tubes) mapping, & this is the closest application to that I’ve seen. Thank you.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Sweet! I hope it works well for you. Thanks for leaving feedback, it means a lot to me.
halifaxskater
Thank you sir, very helpful. Though I was UV mapping a human head, this method easily applied!! Cheers!
Jamie Hamel-Smith
I’m glad you were able to apply some of the techniques to a human model, awesome!
halifaxskater
If you’ve ever got time, consider doing a screen cast on UV mapping a human head, I feel like there are many others who could benefit from your proficiency and thorough explanation. There are several head UV mapping video tutorials out there, but many don’t feature explanation. Anyway- Just a thought!
Alejandro Prieto
UV Terrace command can do automatically what you try to achieve at 16:00 – 17:00 (joins points and merge groups of UV polys). Great tutorial!
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Thanks for this, I never explored that feature. I checked it out and it’s pretty cool.
I’m glad you liked the tutorial too.
Sean O'Skea
I’ll subscribe I’ve come to C4D via Vectorworks. My prior modeling has been architectural. VW doesn’t employ UV unwrapping so I’m struggling to learn this new concept, and like I said this tutorial is by far the most clear and comprehensive UV mapping for C4D I’ve found on Youtube. There are one or two others I’ve found but they are only unwrapping a cube or other simple shape. Yours is really terrific. I love your number check texture too—great idea! Thanks.
inlifethrill
One of the best tuts on UV mapping I’ve seen so far. Great stuff. Very detailed and very well explained. Few screen casts are of such quality and organization.. both on youtube and vimeo. You should do more of those.
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Thanks so much for the feedback, I’m glad you liked the tutorial! I’m always trying to do more tutorials, but time is the limiting factor. Stay tuned!
stchristoph2000
fantastic tutorial. I’m subscribing solely based on this video
Jamie Hamel-Smith
I’m glad you like it!
Sean O'Skea
I couldn’t care less about modeling motercycles, but this is an amazingly informative tutorial on UV mapping–very little on this for C4D on Youtube.
Thank you!
Jamie Hamel-Smith
I’m glad you like the tutorial, is there another area of UV mapping or Cinema 4D that you’d like a tutorial on? I’m not well versed in character animation or MoGraph, but I like modeling and mapping.
dix9cent84
Hi Jamie, can u please make a tutorial on texturing a character in Cinema 4D ? I would like to learn how to do that because I now can model my characters but my texturing are bad. Thanks !
Jamie Hamel-Smith
Characters aren’t really my thing, but there are a few good tutorials here on YouTube. Search around and I’m sure you’ll find something that fits.
wexons
Thank you
PlatonicStudios3D
Absolutely Brilliant! I know this is a hard subject to get your head around and this really helps
Mirko
Thanks so much Jamie. You explain the process so well and provide multiple ways to tackle the task which makes this tutorial so valuable.
It really has helped me understand the process of UV mapping complex objects in so many ways.
My friend you are so kind and I thank you so very much for taking the time to help.
The world is a better place with you in it !