This is a series of tutorials which will take you through the process of creating an end table for The Sims 3 in Blender 3D. The series will cover the basics of cloning, meshing, UV mapping, and texturing an object and getting it in the game. Part 1 covers cloning to creating the mesh. Part 2 covers UV mapping.

Tutorial: Creating An End Table In Blender 2.5 Part 1
Tutorial: Creating An End Table In Blender 2.5 Part 2

Please post any questions and comments in this thread.

Part 2 is now up.

Ok I have a question. I did your setting up tutorial first, and my screen when I open it now looks like it was meant to at the end of that tutorial. But when I come to do Part 1 of the meshing, I notice my screen doesn't look like yours does in that. The main thing I can see is that I have what looks like a bit of graph paper on the left hand panel, while you seem to have an options panel. How can I get from here to there?

The set up is the same as the tutorial, I just have the Toolshelf enabled in the 3D viewport. It's disabled in the tutorial pic. It is toggled by pressing T with your cursor in the 3D viewport. The 'bit of graph paper' has been cropped out of the pic.

They are kind of a toggle panels that hop up. You can toggle the properties panel by pressing N and tools panel by pressing T.

Edit: Sorry for the repeat, I forgot to refresh before posting.

Thanks

Hello, I am on step 8 of Tutorial part2 and I am having a few problems with the uv map of the top

See attached pic. I am not quite sure what has gone wrong. Can someone advise what I am failing on

Hmm, can you list what you did? I can't replicate that at all...

In the discussion about the UV map problems in SimLogical, it was mentioned that there is some rule that things should not be mapped near the edges. Maybe your tutorial would be a good place to make this unspoken rule spoken out?

I'd like to wait until we have confirmed the problem and the solution before doing that.

Well, the rule has been in place since TS2 days - in sims modding you never map to the edge of your map. So even if the tool were to allow this, I am inclined to say it should be mentioned in any modding tuts that deal with mapping.

This issue has actually been discussed on several occasions in various threads in the meshing forum here at MTS so I wouldn't exactly call it an unspoken rule. The recent change in the meshing process due to updates in s3pe/plugins/add-ons removed the part of the process where a warning message told creators they had invoked a UV Scales overflow if they mapped out of bounds.

This is why tutorials may seem deficient to a new person in not mentioning this...before they didn't have to mention it...the tools told new people something was up if they mapped in a way that would cause the problem. The tools are under development and, ultimately, this is going to occasionally cause existing tutorials to become outdated. Usually though, if you read back through the threads here, you can find something that is similar to a problem you're having to get the information you need.

But why make a user wait until they think they are finished and are about to import their new mesh before finding out they *should* have done something different? I thought the whole idea of tutorials was to try and show people the right way first, so if they follow them correctly they should rarely receive a rebuke from a tool, nor a fiasco in-game

Yes I am having more problems - I am not sure what is going on. I used the setup you listed in the setup Blender (except I already have a three button mouse so I didn't emulate it and changed the select to left-click as right click was driving me mad). On the first meshing step - align the top of the cube to the top of the target table when I press 0.8 for Z it NEVER lines up - so I did that bit manually. I also got a bit lost on the apply modifiers and ended up using an extra layer for the legs.

On further inspection of the pic you posted, your tabletop has 1228 faces, 102 of which are selected. At that step in the tutorial, you should only have around 74 faces with 9 selected. How you did this, I don't know, but that's why you map looks that way. As for the cube top not lining up, I'd have to see what you're talking about to know what's wrong. Applying modifiers is just click the Apply button on the modifier you wish to apply. You have to do this because until you apply the modifier, you still editing the original geometry. The modifier is just showing you the resulting geometry if you were to apply the modifier. And that has nothing to do with layers, so you lost me there...

Not as lost as I am. I am going to uninstall Blender and then reinstall Then I will redo all the set up steps and start again. Its a great tutorial, I am just a tad thick. Oh, and Maylin looked at the model from the .blend file and said that somehow I had applied the mirror modifier to the top. That would explain the many faces.

Why unistall/reinstall? If you want to start from the default just go to File->Load Factory Settings and start from there.

I already did the factory settings thing -but still had fails in the tutorial so I thought fine - will reinstall in case I did something wrong there - took like 5 mins and put my mind at rest. I realised it was because I was getting horribly lost with the modifiers - I still am a bit. Of course, I am after using that rinky dink bevel function so I have to learn how.

I also found out why my box did not drop to the required height - I needed to have centred on the target mesh first. I think.

On Part 2, Step 8.. Don't you mean type 90 to rotate 90 degrees, instead of type 45 to rotate 45 degrees?

Great tutorial set, am waiting for part 3!

If rotating 45 degrees isn't giving you the same results that are shown in the picture you probably have not correctly selected, split, and unwrapped the entire top face and the beveled edges. Make sure you're in orthoganal view mode (5 on the numberpad) and click 1 on the numberpad to get the table facing you front-on. Then use the box select (B) to select the top three dots before going on to split the edges. If you try to make that selection in Perspective view you'll have a very difficult time selecting what you need to get a result that looks correct when rotated 45 degrees.

You can tell which view mode you're in by looking in the top left corner of the right hand screen (assuming you have your screens set up as shown in the set up tutorial). It will say either User Persp or User Ortho.

No. When I unwrapped, the top came in on a 45 degree angle(like a diamond). Did it not do that for you?

I did every step fanatically by letter, and the top did not show up in diamond shape when unwrapping. It doesn't matter too much to me, cause changing the value to 90 helped. But, I have extra time while waiting for the third part, so I can redo the tutorial to see if I did do something differently.

Edit
Yep yep. Was on select edge mode instead of select face. Thus no 45 degree angle for me.

Edit2,
OM's comment reminded me that even though this above was my mistake (I missed that one mode, cause was hassling with the keys..), in first part, there is no mentioning on that you should be on ortho view instead of perspective. I spent whole good half an hour scratching my head and wondering why my screen looks different, and then I just started testing every button until I managed to make it look the same.

So, where you first time tell a user to go to front view, please add that they should also put them selves on ortho view at that point. Maybe you had it set by default, but to me it gave perspective view, and a nice headache

I'm not trying to complain, sorry if it sounds like that. I just have never used Blender to anything else than baking, so this is all new and exciting (+frustrating) for me.

Here is my table top, meshed and mapped when I didn't get the 45 degree angle.

I think the Persp view is the factory default...at least I never changed it but that's what I got initially also. Shoulda remembered you could get the same "45 degree rotate doesn't look right" issue from being in the wrong select mode also...been there and done that too :P

Easy way to tell Persp view vs Ortho view is the grid, apart from looking at the name, that is.
Perspective View has the grid on the floor and is bigger closer to you, narrower further away.
Orthographic View has the grid facing you and is all the same size.

Just a question, cmo, on Ripping vertices. Most UVUnwrapping tutorials have them as Mark Seam, so what is the difference? I mean why would choose one over the other, in what kind of circumstances do we tell which is better to use in that instance?

Ripping/splitting the vertices is not the conventional way, marking seams is. The reason I do ripping/splitting is strictly for this game, because the vertices have to be split to match the islands in the UV. So, even if you use mark seams in the initial unwrap, you may have to split some stuff later, so I just do it to begin with.