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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 19th May 2014 at 5:50 AM
Default Question about making wall art.
Just a quick question. I'm new of course, or I wouldn't be asking such a dumb question but, what happens if I can't find a mesh the same size as the artwork I want to make? I have some art I copied off the Internet, and the measurements are almost perfectly square. I found a lot of nice meshes to clone, but they are all tall or wide. Not square. Obviously if I tried to make a square image fit a rectangular mesh, the image will appear stretched. I'm hoping I could just paint the parts of the mesh not covered by my image pure black and those parts will be transparent. Or am I completely nuts? Is there a way to make a not-quite-the-right-size mesh work for me?

I'm using meshes that don't have a frame, by the way.

Thanks in advance.
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Test Subject
#2 Old 19th May 2014 at 7:47 AM
Hi,

No you are certainly not nuts. Its always a battle to find pics that will not become stretched or distorted because of their size. Are you going to mesh the frame by hand or are you doing the method that requires you to just clone the frame and then replace the overlay? If you are meshing it from scratch you can make it more to the size (portrait or landscape) of the image you are using, otherwise you may need to get creative on the overlay.

You could paint parts of the overlay black to make them transparent but it might look like strange but you could play around with it. What mesh is it btw that you are using? You could always try too to use the extended features of searching google images to find ones more in proportion
Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 20th May 2014 at 1:25 AM
This is one of the meshes I wanted to use, you'll notice there is no frame, so no meshing is involved in what I'm trying to do:



And when I opened the overlay file in Photoshop, I noticed the parts I circled in red. That makes me wonder if it was something that the original creator did to make the image fit a mesh that was a little too large, if that makes sense.



If anyone can help, I'd be eternally grateful.
Test Subject
#4 Old 20th May 2014 at 6:32 AM
Hi,

Okay so this is a mesh that someone else (not EA) originally made? If so then you are okay as far as the frame goes since the creator would have done that originally

That might be possible as you say, but most likely it is the multi behind the pic, as the overlay is made from the multi (its hard to tell without looking at the file) So you can try what you were saying using transparency on those spots on the sides where you don't want it to show. Just make anything you want hide black and anything you want to see white on the overlay.

Hope this helps
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 20th May 2014 at 9:21 AM
Quote: Originally posted by metisqueen30
Hi,

Okay so this is a mesh that someone else (not EA) originally made? If so then you are okay as far as the frame goes since the creator would have done that originally

That might be possible as you say, but most likely it is the multi behind the pic, as the overlay is made from the multi (its hard to tell without looking at the file) So you can try what you were saying using transparency on those spots on the sides where you don't want it to show. Just make anything you want hide black and anything you want to see white on the overlay.

Hope this helps


Thanks. I'll try it. I'm not sure I completely understand what you're talking about though. I think I'll just have to experiment and see how things turn out.
Test Subject
#6 Old 20th May 2014 at 10:02 PM
Hi,

Sorry I will try to clarify. I couldn't find that mesh in TSR WS, so I wondered if you are cloning a mesh that someone else from here or elsewhere meshed. The reason I ask that is because all the EA meshes that are posters like that don't have textures for some reason, so you can't really use them. I always clone the lips painting when making a new mesh.

Okay, so when you open up the overlay in PS, you would expect to see what you do. Objects have 4 different textures: the overlay, multiplier specular and mask. All textures are made using the main multiplier texture (which gives our object shadows). Multipliers have a very dark background like in your picture. So what you are seeing behind the overlay is the multiplier, which will not show if you have used the proper alpha on the overlay. So what you want to do is make a frame around the part of the mesh that is too short and make it completely black. Be sure to save it as DXT-5 interpolated alpha or the black will just show. The alpha (which must be all black) is what will give you the transparency on the overlay. Give it a go, let me know how it turns out and please post any questions you might have as well. I'm happy to give you a hand.
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