L19 — UVs & textures (beginner)
Goal
Understand UVs as “gift wrap coordinates,” create a tiny texture, and respect N64 size limits.
UVs in one metaphor
The mesh is a cardboard animal. UV unwrap flattens its skin onto a 2D poster. The texture image is paint on that poster.
- U, V = axes of the poster (like X, Y for images)
- Overlapping UVs share paint (fine for tiling)
- Stretching UVs stretches the art
Minimal Blender path
- Select mesh → Edit Mode.
- Select all (
A). - UV → Unwrap (or Smart UV Project for a first pass).
- Open UV Editor to see the island.
Texture rules for this course
| Do | Don’t |
|---|---|
| 32×32 or 64×64 to start | 2K hero textures |
| Power-of-two sizes | Random 137×91 |
| Few unique textures | Unique 256×256 per ground tile |
| Prefer PNG masters | Uncompressed huge TIFFs in ROM |
Recall TMEM ~4 KiB (L05). Vertex color (L20) carries large-scale variation.
Assign a test image
- Create a 64×64 PNG (checker or solid).
- Material → Base Color → Image Texture.
- Pack or keep the PNG next to the blend for export.
Exercises
- Smart-UV a cube and put a checker on it.
- Resize an image to 32×32 and reassign.
Lesson code
Module 3 is Blender-first — there is no per-lesson C ROM for L17–L25.
Runnable code that loads the course meshes lives in the Module 3 asset lab checkpoint (lessons/m3-asset-lab/).