• Custom Texturing UV Maps • Loading Plug-ins• Textures with TransparencyBy Rachelle DanieleTHE GOAL• In this tutorial, we’ll be texturing a simple polygon to look like a Persian rug.• You’ll learn how to use UV maps to create custom textures, how to load plug-ins and how to create transparent textures• The techniques used can be applied to more complex objects that aren’t flat, utilizing the true value of UV maps.STEP ONE: UV VIEW• Change one display window to UV view• Load your model into Lightwave. If your creating a carpet create a box with no height.• Now your going to create a single map. Highlight the polygons you want to include in polygon mode. Press “q” and give this surface a name. Keep the polygons highlighted. • If you want you can add a color to this surface by clicking on the box next to color. Another window will pop up. Select your color . Hit create custom color, then ok. This is usually helpful for objects with complex surfaces. STEP TWO: NAMING SURFACES& CREATING MAPS• In the lower right hand corner of the screen, click on the “T” for texture.• Then go to the pull down menu to the right of the “T” .• Click on “new” to create a new texture• In the “Create UV Texture Map” window that pops up, name your texture and select the map type that is most easily textured depending on your object. In this case, we’ll select planar since we have a flat object.• In the UV display window you should be able to see the texture you just created. Remember, this is what you’ll be painting on to give your object color. Make sure you like the map. If not, go to the “Map” tab at the top of the screen and then to the left hand menu and hit “Clear Map”.• If you like your map, your ready to save it in a format that you can paint on.STEP THREE: PLUG-INS• To export your image in a paintable format, you must first load the proper plug-ins• For additions of Lightwave older than 8.0 click “Modeler” on the left hand menu, then “Add plug-in”. • For newer versions, click on the “Utilities” tab at the top of the screen, then “Add Plug-in” on the left hand menu bar • Load in “UV Imaginator” from wherever it exists on your computer. • Click done on the add Plug-ins pop-up windowSTEP FOUR: EXPORTING YOUR TEXTURE• Now under “Additional” in the left side menu, found under the “Utilities” tab in Lightwave 8.0, open your UV Imaginator plug-in with your desired UV map visible in the UV Map display window.• In the UV Imaginator options box that appears, click on save as, then name your file and hit “Generate”. The file won’t save unless you hit generate.• In older versions of Lightwave, your going to have to hunt to find the “Additional” menu option.STEP FIVE: CUSTOM TEXTURE• Open your desired painting program: Aura, Photoshop, or Paint.• Load your saved texture .bmp file. Paint all over it!• If your doing the rug, create some tassels, making the areas you want transparent between them white. • Save this image as a .JPG• Once this is saved, color everything on this texture that you DON’T want transparent black. Everything else should be white. This is a mask your creating. Name this new image something else and save it as a JPG.STEP SIX: APPLYING YOUR TEXTURE• With your object in Modeler, open the “Surface Editor” in the right hand menu. • Then click on the name of the surface you want your image on, under “Surface Name”.• Next click on the T next to “Color” within the Surface Editor bring up the Texture Editor.• Now your going to add your texture. Change the projection type from planar to UV.• Choose the UV map you created that you want your texture to apply to and load the color image you created. Then simply click “Use Texture” at the bottom of the screen.STEP SEVEN : ADDING TRANSPARENCY• Follow the same steps from step six on only, now within the surface editor, click on the T by “Transperancy”, not by “Color”. Use all the same settings in the “Texture Editor” as in the previous steps, only load the mask you created for your image. Hit “Use Texture”.•If you had notrasparency you wanted to add, you’d now be finished. In the case of our rug we’re not done yet.THAT’S ALL FOLKS• That’s it, you’re done. You won’t be able to view the results of your transparent texture in Modeler. You’ll need to open Layout and render your object to see what the final surface looks like with transparency.BIBLIOGRAPHYSmith, Garret. Composting and Transparency Mapping. Retrieved from<http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~ranger/Fall_2005/3D_Computer_Modeling/Tutorials.html> on October 26,