Topic: [imvu] Using UV map as texture

[kat]

When making items from multiple meshes just treat each as a separate furniture item.

In other words if those cushions were essentially the tops of padded boxes, the 'box' part would be built using the same principles used to make the cushions, i.e. the mesh is vertex grouped to the "root" bone of the same armature used by the 'seat' part. At export two meshes would then be exported rather than just the original.

In Create Mode this then simple requires adding another mesh element in "meshes" (click the "+ Add" button top-left of the section). This new component is then treated then same as any other.

[Jhaeza]

Thank you,

I could finally understand it. I got a new problem, though. I don't know why I even got this. When I first used bevel, the edges worked perfectly. Now I can't really round them off.

This was my first try:




Now I get this:

[kat]

That looks like Bevel is being applied to a scaled Object. To fix: in Object mode make sure to use "Apply" ("Ctrl+A") to reset to the mesh before using Bevel otherwise the results tend to skew like that.

[Jhaeza]

Oh, so it was that simple. 
My two meshes share the same texture now, though. I change the first one with the pillows and the second mesh changes, too.
I unwrapped the second mesh and used a different "test-material" from the ones you provided. What did I do wrong here?

[kat]

If that happens it generally means the two meshes are linked duplicates. Select on of them and then press "U". From the "Make Single User" menu that appears click "Object & Data" or "Object & Data & Material+Tex" to create a unique instance for the Material and Texture slots as per what you'll need to do anyway.

[Jhaeza]

That worked, thank you.
In my second mesh tab, I can also see the material used in the first tab. Can I somehow change that? So, that only one material is listed (the grey one)?

[kat]

Is that in any way associated with the mesh, i.e. its not part of the model? If so go into the "assets" tab.. it should be there as a highlighted entrey. If it is, it can be deleted by selecting it and clicking "Remove". That can be used generally to get rid of any unused or redundant assets in the file (ones not linked to anything).

[Jhaeza]

There's nothing highlighted. Both of the textures are listed on both of the material lists for each of the meshes. So it something, that can't be changed?

[kat]

It should be possible to forcibly remove it using the "assets" inspector, just select it to highlight then click "Remove".

[Jhaeza]

So this is my list of materials in the assets:



When I delete one, this happens:

[kat]

So the grey one should cover the entire mesh? In Blender make sure you remove any unwanted Materials, if both sections use the same image but you have two Materials assigned you'll typically end up with what you're showing above. Consolidate and make sure you have one Material per texture if you want the single texture instance in IMVU.

[Jhaeza]

I wanted to export two meshes from blender, which worked: the pillows and the "big pillow" beneath. The pillows share one texture and the "big one" is the grey texture on the material list.
I have two mesh tabs in create mode but I somehow see the texture of the pillows in the material list of my "big pillow". But the big one only has one and I don't know, why the pillows list shows the grey one of the big pillow beneath and why the big one shows the texture of the little pillows in it's own material list.

I changed the colors now to explain myself a bit better.



This is the tab of the little pillows and the material list also shows up the green texture:



This is the tab of the big pillow and the material list also shows up the pink texture:



What I mean is, that the materials are duplicated and can be found in the other mesh tab, too. But the second mesh only includes the big pillows and the first mesh only the little ones.
So why does the create mode show me both textures on both mesh tabs? So, that the pink big pillow only has the pink material/texture listed in its tab.

[kat]

Right but are you exporting this =/=, both upper and lower included per 'left' or 'right' side exported. Or this --/--, top and bottom sections exported separately regardless of left/right? If it's the first there will be texture sharing, if it's the latter make sure each top and bottom mesh have a single Material assignment in Blender (they should each have only their respective Material and image assignment).

Note you may also need to enable "XRF" Materials for greater control in Create Mode - click "Settings" then "Create", activate "Turn on Material & Texture name editing".

Scratch all of that as it looks like IMVU has changed the way that works... it looks like all the textures associated with a given project are included regardless of the number of meshes loaded into Create Mode. In other words, they're not listed per-mesh, but instead per-project - I just tested this on a simple mesh and found the same problem occurring, the unwanted images don't appear in "assets" for them to be removed -- I know this never used to be the case as I have some live projects set up using multiple meshes and they don't exhibit this problem... or at least I don't remember them doing so. Looks like you might be stick with this.

[EDIT] after a bit more investigation... it is possible to remove the unused Material in Create Mode but it requires a bit of messing about. To remove;

Step 1
- Derive product as normal
- Select each Material and set the XRF selector to the blank option at the very top of the list.
- Apply Changes.
- Set the XMF selector to the blank entry at the top of the mesh list.
- Apply Changes.

This should force the default/original item to disappear in the main view.

Step 2
- Add an initial mesh object.
- Add the associated Materials (XRF) and images.

Step 3
- In the "Debug" tab under "Debug 01" the current assets will be shown.
- Under "Material" select the "TextureMap[n]" entry that should be there and "Delete".
- Apply Changes.
- Add any extra XMF (and associated XRF) files.
- Apply Changes.

This doesn't change the texture association, it just removes the unwanted references