Tutorial Home / Edit Appearances / Applying Textures

The simplest way to add a texture (and the best starting point) is to select the object then choose a pre-defined texture from the Texture Palette. Activate the Texture Palette with the tab.

Use the drop-down list to browse through the categories of textures.

Note: You can add you own textures by dragging them from the Windows desktop or a folder onto the Texture Palette. The first time you do this Cosmo Worlds will prompt you for a name for your new palette.

Once you've applied a texture you can make simple changes to its properties with the Texture Editor. Activate the Texture Editor with the tab.

Translate allows you to move and rotate a texture (S = left-right, T = up-down).

The Repeat checkboxes dictate whether a texture repeats if it has been scaled down.

Repeat/Scale specifies the number of times a texture repeats (can be a fraction).

Advanced texture mapping requires the use of the PEP Texture Applicator (see below).

The PEP Texture Applicator allows much greater freedom in applying textures. With it you can manipulate how a texture is applied to each and every polygon on an object.

Activate the applicator with the button on the Texture Editor or use the icon on the toolbar

Details to follow in the texturing tutorial below.

To start off we're going to add the branding logos to the front of the camera. Instead of applying these textures straight onto the camera geometry, we'll create some new faces, stretch them to size, apply the textures, then move them into place.

The branding textures are transparent in parts so applying them directly onto the camera would make parts of the camera transparent, which is not what we want.

Switch to a Front View (Camera Menu > Front) or

+ F

Switch to Top View + T.

Drag on the DynaBox to move the face down so it's in front of the camera.

Switch back to Front View + F.

Drag the face to position shown.

Click and drag on the white corners of the DynaBox with the following constraint keys to squash the face into shape.

+ +

(SHIFT forces a non-uniform scale or "squash" and CTRL forces a scale to the opposite side rather than through the centre of the object)

Open the Texture Palette then, in Windows, open the folder containing your textures.

Drag the file logos.png onto the open Texture Palette. When prompted, enter the name camera for your new palette.

Click Hide Unselected to show only the selected face. Click Zoom Selection so the face fills the view.

Note: These steps make it easier to work on an object. Get into this habit!

Activate the PEP Texture Applicator then go into PEP Modelling Mode and select the face.

Note: When in PEP Mode the object is surrounded by a red rectangle. PEP mode allows you to select and edit individual Points, Edges and Polygons.

In the PEP Texture Applicator select and drag on points to change what part of the texture is applied to the face.

Hint: you can drag out a bounding box to select multiple points.

Although you can't see it in the PEP Texture Applicator, the Sony logo is at the top. Watch the 3D viewport to see what's actually happening.

FYI: the reason you can't see it is because Sony is white, the background is transparent and Cosmo displays transparency as white in both the Texture Palette and the PEP Texture Applicator.

Switch back to Perspective View + P, Show All and Rotate your view a little.

Holding down to constrain perpendicular, move the Sony logo as close as possible to the surface of the camera.

Repeat the above steps to add the Cybershot and Memory Stick logos (which are both on the same texture).

You will need a separate face for each logo.

The front of your camera should now look something like this:

Click Hide Unselected to show only the selected object. Click Zoom Selection so the face fills the view. Switch to Back View + K. Enter PEP Modelling Mode and drag within the red rectangle to select all the faces.

Note: because both the object and the background are black it will be almost invisible but the red rectangle and selected faces help to highlight its position.

Activate the PEP Texture Applicator , select all the points and move them so they encompass the words MPEG MOVIE Digital Still Camera DSC F-55E.

If necessary, these icons allow you to Scale, Rotate points or move the Centre of scale/rotate operations.

Use the techniques above to complete the mapping of the camera.

When it comes time to map the LCD screen just use any one of the LCD textures and we'll change it later in the Complex Interactions section.

Apply the skills you've just learnt to texture map the Memory Stick and the Battery.

Open the file memstick_coloured.wrl and map it with the texture memory_stick.png.