UV Mapping Guide
This guide is made under the presumption that you already know the basics of how to work with DAI meshes and other modding features.
What is UV Mapping?
To explain it as best as I can, it’s how a mesh determines what exact sections of a texture is displayed on each polygon.
So for example, if you want to add a braid into your hairstyle but would prefer to isolate it to just that one singular strand such as how my character had hers done here, it would require editing the UV map. Creating a new diffuse may work to an extent, but you run the risk of having random strands throughout the hair displaying the braid where you don’t want it to.
REQUIRED
3ds Max (Any version will work)
Adobe Photoshop / GIMP
Note: This probably works with any other 3D editing software perfectly fine (such as Blender), 3ds Max is just what I personally use and ultimately will be showing in this guide.
1.) Import your desired mesh into 3ds Max along with a vertically flipped file of the associated texture. It’s recommended you flip the diffuse file in an image editing software beforehand in order to save time. Since I’m looking to edit hair, I’ll be grabbing something like hair_straight_thick_d to use as a reference.
2.) With the mesh you will be editing selected, go to your Modifiers dropdown list either from the very top toolbar or the ‘Modify’ tab on the far right and select Unwrap UVW.
3.) You should now see that your editing menu has changed drastically from before. Scroll down until you see the Edit UVs menu and select Open UV Editor ...
4.) From there, a new window should open up on your screen with what will most likely be the UV map on a checkboard pattern background.
5.) At the top right, open the dropdown menu and select the imported flipped texture in order to view it during editing. From here, you can shift the map around to suit your needs. All changes made will show up live on your mesh.
6.) Once finished, exit out of the editing menu and Export your mesh as an OBJ file. Make sure your Materials are toggled in your settings or you’ll end up with empty holes in game.
Huge thanks to @aileani for being incredibly patient and helping me figure out my exports to get UV mapping working again!
