UV Mapping of Low-poly Apache Helicopter

Hello,

This is a super low polygonal meant for a game. I’m kind of new to modelling and UV mapping in particular and I’ve come to find that I often get ugly distortions by the time I get to the texturing phase. So I decided to post this for comment.

As you can see, I mirrored the UV map down the center to save space, but it looks like there’s something strange happening with the test grid around the center areas. I was wondering if this is a problem and if there’s anything I can do to fix it.





And here’s the UV map.

Basically what’s happening is you’re getting UV stretching, so you’ll need to add more UV seams to break up the shape (you can add more seams by selecting edges in edit mode, and hitting ctrl E to bring up your edge specials menu). UV unwrapping is a lot like doing origami in reverse; you have a 3D mesh that needs to be laid flat for texturing, but if there aren’t enough seams in your object then blender won’t know which areas should lay flat, and your UVs will bunch up. In this case, you could add a seam along where the cockpit window meets the body of the helicopter, since the material will be transitioning it would be less noticeable.

Thanks for the advice, I’ll give it a try.