VrayDecal Puzzle

[utku_demir]

Hello Dear All,

I have a big mystery to solve, so as you can see in attachment I have sphere and surrounded by 3 times vraydecal! I just want to project that texture (which in this case image stretching cos of sphere shape!) onto unwrapped surface to able to make papercraft model!



Render looks like that (this is ideal result)..



So if I render unwrap map and using photoshop for adding 3 times image getting that kind of result (this is not ideal result!)..



As you can see there is a distortion a specially on text (cos of sphere shape) which is not useful for real papercraft model (in pepakura)
I need to get stretched (vraydecal onto unwrapped surface) unwrap to able to craft correct papercraft model. Don't know if there is any way to cook/bake vraydecal onto surface?

Can anyone help me to solve that mystery please?

Cheers

[fixeighted]

What may work is if you use your actual template geometry and apply 2 bends to make it into a sphere.
That way you can judge how much the graphic needs to be squashed in order to correct any stretch.

[utku_demir]

What may work is if you use your actual template geometry and apply 2 bends to make it into a sphere.
That way you can judge how much the graphic needs to be squashed in order to correct any stretch.

Hey fixeighted it's great idea, and another way also could be drawing outline of the image and projecting onto sphere polygon, thank you very much

[fixeighted]

Unfortunately I think I'm wrong about this approach...it may appear correct but won't be accurate, as any graphic needs
to take into account the cuts.

Here is semi-useful post regarding the process as done in Blender but I can't figure out how to
apply a similar approach in Max
https://blenderartists.org/t/unwrapp...-cut/511926/12

[fixeighted]

Hmm...and LOL.....

I really managed to confuse myself. That Pepakura app is really good...have not seen it before.
I got too much into the puzzle of how to actually do what Pepakure does, but do it in Max, which I cannot

All you need is to create the pre-distorted graphic, which is doable, so all good

[utku_demir]

Hi again, to be honest didn't expect that much complexity (Mercator Projection) I learned something new but what I made outline of the image and project onto sphere worked pretty well (shapemerge)
Actual image and unwrapped polygon difference showing inflation very well, so in that way I can use unwrapped render as a reference to manipulate actual image
And yes pepakura one of my fav. program crazy right fixeighted !

[fixeighted]

You don't need to unwrap the model as that is just complicating things. Just use regular UVWmapping (no decal), as in your 'ideal result' that you posted, and it will export just fine into Pepakura.