Wasn't it Rune who wrote:
>Mike Williams wrote:
>> What happens is that not all of the 2d UV-map is used.
>> The front of the body is mapped to part of the texture
>> space that's shaped like the front of a body, and the
>> back of the body is mapped to a separate area. It's
>> quite common for the body to be split into several
>> pieces, with parts like eyes, teeth, tongue and hair
>> mapping to disjoint regions of the map.
>
>And also the back and the front of the body I assume? And here, it is
>not just the map that is split up, but the actual mesh object is split
>into several meshes right? Because that would be the only way to make
>those "jumps" in the UV-coordinates as far as I understand.

It's only the maps that are split. The entire model (front, back, eyes,
hair, teeth and tongue) is a single mesh2 object (or single Wavefront
OBJ file in UVmapper). 

In POV, the uv_indices feature is used to manage the "jumps" - the
situation where one vertex maps to more than one position on the UV map.

Wavefront OBJ files don't have the equivalent of uv_indices. I think
they just declare some vertices more than once, because each vertex
declaration can only correspond to one texture locator.

>> The usual method is to attempt to blend the textures
>> near the seams to something rather plain.
>
>Ah, indeed I couldn't imagine what the alternative to that would be. It
>sounds like a rather big limitation though, in cases where you want a
>detailed and non-plain texture covering the whole object.

The alternative, in such cases, is lots of hard work. This leads to
situations like that of the wonderful new DAZ dragon, where the model is
free, but a texture map for the model costs $12.97.

One trick that's being developed by some members of the Poser community
at the moment is to arrange for the seams to be located in places where
they tend to be out of sight much of the time. The existing Poser models
have two particular seams that tend to be rather noticeable, one around
the neck and one down the outside of the arms. The "Free Market Family"
models are being designed so that the arms are mapped cylindrically and
only have a seam down the inside.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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