UV Mapping & Texturing

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a UV map of an object you wish to texture using Blender's
'seams' functionality. By learning how to do this correctly you can apply effective detailed textures to
almost any object, ushering your work into a new level of complexity and flexibility.

Note: You will need blender v2.34 (or greater), and an image editing program like Gimp or Photoshop
to attempt this tutorial.

Step 1 - Start Blender and add a cube of an appropriate

size. Now switch to top view (Num Pad 7) and
extrude the cube in the exact same way as the image to
the left. If you do not know how to use extrude, you
may wish to view Blender's documentation before you
proceed... ;)

Step 2 - Exit edit mode and press F to enter face select

mode. Split the main viewport in half and change the
new view to the UV/Image Editor window.

You can select faces with R-Click and Shift-R-Click, or

press A on the keyboard to toggle all/none of them.
 Step 3 - Select all the faces and click UV > LSCM
Unwrap. You'll notice in the UV window that the
Vertices are all messed up, and the faces aren't visible.
To correct this we will have to make use of seams.

While still in Face Select mode press Tab and then

select the vertices indicated in the image opposite.
Press CTRL-E on the keyboard, and click Mark Seam.
The newly Marked edges now have a thicker line to
indicate that they are marked.

Step 4 - Here is an example of a cube 'unwrapped' into a UV map. Its basically like cutting the shape
so it falls apart as a Net. Mark the seams as I have and come out of edit mode. Now select all faces and
click UV > LSCM Unwrap as before.
 Step 5 - If you have done everything correctly, you
should have a UV map resembling the one opposite.

Step 6 - Now in the UV window rotate the edges so

that they are straight. Then resize the windows and
zoom in until the UV map fills your screen. Take a
screenshot by pressing PrintScrn on your keyboard
(next to Scroll Lock). *OR* as an alternative, select
UVs > Save UV Face Layout, and let Blender save it
as a .tga.

Step 7 - Open up your image editor, add a new document, and paste the screenshot in. Crop out any
unwanted areas and add a number to each square in your image map - the importance of this will
become apparent later. Then save your image as a supported format (.jpg is fine), and return to
Blender.
Step 8 - Restore your windows to normal and go to
Image > Open in the UV window's menu. Select the
image you saved in step 7 and move/resize it until it
superimposes over the existing UV map perfectly.

Step 9 - In the main window switch to Textured mode

to allow you to see your finished pre-rendered object
with the texture applied.

To render with the texture go to the materials tab and

select TexFace. Now render your handiwork as normal.
Conclusion - And here is our final result! Now that
you know which number corresponds to each face you
can, of course, do more detailed texturing work... but
I'll leave that up to you! Try practising with more
advanced shapes to exercise your 3d mind further, and
perfect your UV mapping technique. Have fun! :)