I'm having problems with a hair model I've made in Carrara 2. I made a basic texture that I want to map around the cylinders I used to create the hair (see the first image). Now I have created two versions of the hair model. The first was made using the spline modeler to create the locks of hair (see the second image). I have no problems getting the texture map to wrap around each cylinder. It works perfectly. However, the file size and number of polygons in this model is outrageous, making it pretty much useless in Poser. So I made a second model using the vertex modeller to create the locks of hair (see the third image). Basically, I took an oval and swept it along a path to make the lock. This model has a nice low polygon count and the file size is much more managable, but I can't get the texture map to work correctly! If you look at the parts I've circled in green, you can see that instead of starting at the top of the cylinder, the texture and transparency maps start in the middle and then wrap back around to the top. I have UVMapper Pro, and I can export a lock of the vertex based hair as an obj, remap it in UVMapper, and then reimport it back into Carrara, but then I would have to rebuild the entire hair model with the newly mapped cylinders, which I am trying to avoid doing. Any suggestions to help me fix this so I don't have to start over again from scratch? And does anybody know how I could get the spline based model down to a smaller file size and polygon count, since it works just fine with the texture map? I appreciate any help sent my way.

Here's the hair texture...

Here's the spline based hair model...

And here's the vertex-based model. I've circled a couple of the spots where you can see the misplaced texture map and transparenc map.

If the hair tex is misaligned (oriented to the wrong axis), use the texture room in Carrara. Make sure the cylindrical mapping icon is the right axis/orientation. Sounds like it should be z-axis.

I was thinking the same thing. You may be able to use projection mapping to crack this problem. One other idea for your question concerning the spline model, You might be able to reduce the surface fidelity to get your poly count down. Never tried going below 100% but it's worth a shot. -Kix

-Kix

Okay, the first few times I tried to realign the texture map to the Z axis, I had no luck. I've been doing so much poking around, though, that I somehow accidentally got the map straightened out for the hair strands not in the ponytail. Now I've got to fix the others. I did notice that when I am in the vertex modeller, if I select the cross section, I get an option in the properties tray for mapping (spherical, cylidrical, box, custom - also asks for which axis). I've noticed that changing these options changes how the texture map works on the vertex object, so I'm still digging around there. As for reducing the surface fidelity of the spline model, I tried that and got a mess. I don't have to reduce it by much to get a significant reduction in the polygon count, but it looks ugly! I have one other idea I'm going to try. Will let you know if that works.

To me it looks like the texture map is tiling itself vertically on the ponytail and the dark area is where the tiles meet. Keith

That's what it looks like to me too, but the texture map isn't set to tile, either horizontally or vertically! For some reason, it just seems to want to start in the middle of the object, run to the end, and wrap back around to the middle again. Agh!