which surfacting tutes are best?
 

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to decide which of the 2 surfacing tutes (Stratocaster or McLaren) I should buy. Can someone who is familiar with both give me a quick and dirty review? Specifcally, do they emphasize different texturing approaches (e.g. image maps versus UV)?


Any feedback would be appreciated!

The McLaren surfacing tutorials deal primarily with surface properties. There isn't much use of textures in the way of image maps. I believe images are used on the tail lights in the bump channel but that's about the extent of image maps in that tutorial.

The Stratocaster surfacing tutorials are about the same. Again you're dealing primarily with surface settings. The only difference is that image maps are used a bit more frequently. Off hand, I remember a logo on the neck and the wood grain on the body being done with image maps.

Both tutorials make use of UV maps but neither of them involve unwrapping models. The reason for this is because image maps are used in very select spots where a projection of some sort can be used to create the UV map.

The only tutorial that I'm aware of where Phillip unwraps a model to make a UV map is the tabasco box tutorial in the freebie section.