Shape fitted texture filling

[LancerSolurus]

Is there any plugin that will fill in a shape with an entire texture. For example say I have a hexagon shape that I want to fill with a texture, it would take the texture and squeeze, bend and distort it to match the shape of the hexagon.

This ability would greatly speed up texturing UV maps for a model. I have yet to find a single paint program since I had DPaint on the Amiga years ago that has this feature. Any help would be appreciated. I've looked thru the plugin list and the closest I found was 'Shaped Gradient' which is exactly what Im looking for but doesn't support textures.

Edited February 19, 2011 by LancerSolurus

[SAND33P]

Maybe contacting the developer of shaped gradient to introduce an update? he/she may do it if you ask nicely. Iv never heard of such a plugin myself, but maybe someone else knows.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

This plugin will fill a shape with a texture, but not warp that texture to the shape: Photo Flood Fill

[LancerSolurus]

Thanks for the replies, I will keep hunting. The guy who made the gradient filler hasnt been here in months so I doubt I will get a reply.

The photo flood fill I will need to play with a little more, it will help when the shapes are square, which a lot of them are...

[Goonfella]

Is this what you are looking for Lancer? -

You can choose a shape and apply any texture to it.

[yellowman]

We don't have that plugin yet, but I have a little strange method to do that, but it needs some practicing to experience it:

All credits go to Pyrochild, the creator of Liquify plugin

[pdnnoob]

circle: run lens

That's about all I can help you with

[LancerSolurus]

@ Goonfella - does that one allow you to use a complete texture instead of simply colorizing another texture? That was the impression I got from reading the thread was it only changed the colors...

@ Yellowman - that technique is a pretty good one if I want to make some unusual textures, but unfortunately Im trying to avoid that method since its being done manually. I did save it in my links though for future reference.

@ Pdnnoob - the shape are arbitrary and the textures have to be flat. I will look thru the plugins and check it out though...

This pic is what I mean by filling in a shape, the green lines need their interior filled in. To properly set it up I just fill the area outside of the shapes with a solid color. This gives me the shapes without the lines in them since I typically do it in another layer. Then I could simply select the texture I want to use to fill it and walla, in less than 5 mins the entire UV mapped texture would be finished. As it stands now I have to manually paint every one of those shapes by hand. The following pic is just 1 of the 34 textures I have to paint for a space station in the game.

[yellowman]

Looks like all these shapes are quadrilaterals, I just can't get you, do you actually need the texture to suit every shape, or just cutout 2D texture using these shapes?

Or:

[LancerSolurus]

The image on the right, the image I posted is one of the simplest mappings for the model's texture. Here is a better example of why I'm hunting for a shaped fill rountine.

[pdnnoob]

Are all of those pieces are flat facets on the final 3D object, or do you have an idea of the shape of each piece in 3 dimensions?

I really have no idea why cutting 2D shapes out is not going to work if each piece is flat, so it seems to me there is some kind of "depth" to each piece.

In that case, using gradients, make higher parts whiter and lower parts darker. Everything else (outside of the object areas) should have 7F7F7F for its color, including the outlines. Use the resulting set of gradients as a displacement mask on your texture, then cut out each piece using your outline sheet.

[Goonfella]

Sorry if I never made myself clear.

I meant that you could use the magic wand to select a shape and choose a texture using the Apply Texture plug in as you can see below. I selected each shape separately and added a different texture to each. You could do this for any one of the shapes shown.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Goonfella

[LancerSolurus]

@ Pdnnoob - if you are speaking of displacement maps, that isn't the problem at all. Gradients are unusable in a 3d model in most cases since it looks like garbage in 3D (no offense intended at all). I typically use seamless textures and they must fit perfectly within any shape to not have seams on the final 3D model. I don't use displacement maps, I use a normal map that is created from a height map or in certain testing modes parallax occlusion mapping created using XnView. In that case the shaped gradient plugin is perfect when I don't have a pre-existing height map. BTW, yes, those shapes are flat on the model, it is an unwrapped UV map but I'm trying to get away from the 'manual' texturing I have to do now.

@ Goonfella - the 'apply texture' plugin is similar to what I need. I did a lot of testing with it using various uv maps. Its good if I didn't need seamless mapping. That plugin tiles the texture, you can easily see it by using a very small texture. Also you can see it doesn't do a form fitting for example in the leaf texture you posted. If there was some way of combining the shaped gradient plugin with the apply texture plugin, that would be exactly what Im hunting for. I do see areas I can use the apply texture plugin but not in this case unfortunately.

Good suggestions all around though, if I get enough time I may end up writing my own plugin just for this (which of course I would release here). With working on a massive game engine I don't get much of an opportunity to work on the tools part but this particular feature is rapidly climbing up the to-do list.

[pdnnoob]

Ahh I think I got the idea now. However, I don't see anything that governs how the texture should be bent/twisted to fit in the outlines. Seeing how difficult it would be to describe that in words, you may have to write your own plugin just to show us how you want it done