Tutorial: Unwrapping UVs and Applying a Unique Texture in Blender

Welcome to this tutorial on unwrapping UVs and applying a unique texture in Blender.

• Blender
• Image manipulation software of your choice (e.g Adobe Photoshop)

1. Open Blender and create/import your 3D model.
2. Make sure your model is selected in the 3D viewport.
3. At the top of our viewport we want to select the shading option arrow, this will give us a drop down. Ensure that you select texture in the color section, this will allow you to view any assigned textures in your scene.

1. With your model selected, press Tab to enter Edit Mode.
2. With edge select mode enabled select the edges where you want your UV breaks/ seams to be. Think of your UV like a net for a cereal box and decide where best to place these seams.
3. With these edges select right click and select Mark Seam.

1. Make sure you have your whole mesh selected by pressing A.
2. Using the U key select Unwrap, this will unwrap your mesh whilst considering any seams you have manually added.

1. In our UV editor panel unsure the full UV is selected by pressing A whilst in this panel.
2. With our UV selected we can click on the UV tab and select Export UV Layout. This will take us a to a new window that will allow us to save it as a png or vector graphic.

1. In our image manipulation software of choice, we can import this UV layout and create a texture within these bounds.
2. Once created we can export and save this image we’ve created.

1. Going over to our materials tab we can select the New button to create a new materal, giving it a name that tells us what it is.
2. To assign it an image, we will go to the yellow circle next to Base Color and click it. A new pop up box will show where we want to select Image Texture.
3. You will now see that below the Base Color there is a couple new options, we want to select Open. This will open your files allowing you to select the unique texture you created previously.
4. With this now in place, you should see that your texture has appeared on your mesh!
5. If it hasn’t appeared you may need to manually apply this, but select all faces of your mesh (A button) and select Assign in the materials tab with the texture highlighted.

Congratulations! You've successfully unwrapped a UV map and applied a texture to your model in Blender.

Aaron @ Learn Now