Uv Mapping

"So as its a group project we decided to pick roles on who is doing what i decided to do UV mapping. I have never done this before so it will be a interesting challenge and after watching a few tutorials i getting a good understanding of UV."

http://www.guerrillacg.org/home/3d-texturing/basics-of-uv-mapping
http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?search=uv+mapping&x=0&y=0

Here above is a link of basic description of what UV Mapping is. I have also been looking at Digital Tutors tutorials of doing UV Mapping and i have left a link up there as well. Below i left a brief description of UV Mapping Off wikipiedia it helped me so maybe it can help others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_mapping - "Below is some information i have found useful from wikipedia"

UV mapping ...........The process of UV Mapping transforms the texture map onto the 3D object. In contrast to "X", "Y" and "Z" Cartesian Coordinates, which are the coordinates for the original 3D object in the modeling space, another set of coordinates is required to describe the surface of the mesh, so the letters "U" and "V" are used. UV texturing permits polygons that make up a 3D object to be painted with color from an image. The image is called a UV texture map, but it's just an ordinary image. The UV mapping process involves assigning pixels in the image to surface mappings on the polygon, usually done by "programmatically" copying a triangle shaped piece of the image map and pasting it onto a triangle on the object. UV is the alternative to XY, it only maps into a texture space than into the geometric space of the object. But the rendering computation uses the UV texture coordinates to determine how to paint the three dimensional surface.

In the example to the right, a sphere is given a checkered texture, first without and then with UV mapping. Without UV mapping, the checkers tile XYZ space and the texture is carved out of the sphere. With UV mapping, the checkers tile UV space and points on the sphere map to this space according to their latitude and longitude.

When a model is created as a polygon mesh using a 3D modeler, UV coordinates can be generated for each vertex in the mesh. One way is for the 3D modeler to unfold the triangle mesh at the seams, automatically laying out the triangles on a flat page. If the mesh is a UV sphere, for example, the modeler might transform it into aequirectangular projection. Once the model is unwrapped, the artist can paint a texture on each triangle individually, using the unwrapped mesh as a template. When the scene is rendered, each triangle will map to the appropriate texture from the "decal sheet".

A UV map can either be generated automatically by the software application, made manually by the artist, or some combination of both. Often a UV map will be generated, and then the artist will adjust and optimize it to minimize seams and overlaps. If the model is symmetric, the artist might overlap opposite triangles to allow painting both sides simultaneously.

UV coordinates are applied per face, not per vertex. This means a shared vertex can have different UV coordinates in each of its triangles, so adjacent triangles can be cut apart and positioned on different areas of the texture map.

The UV Mapping process at its simplest requires three steps: unwrapping the mesh, creating the texture, and applying the texture

"Here below i have some screen shoots of the tutorials i have been watching to gain a better understanding of UV's."

"Going through the screen shoot it shows the uv mapping is being done for a dinosaur model using the texture of a chest board.... through watching the tutorial they broke down different techniques and different types of UVing such as Cylindrical Mapping what is used for cylinder shaped objects and Automatic Mapping what is used more for common model's."