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Texture transfer pipelines

The texture transfer pipelines are the algorithmic heart of the Designer's "take a reference photo and a 3D model, produce a baked texture that fits" workflow. The Blue Morpho tutorial drives the two starred recommended pipelines; this page documents every method.

The eight standalone methods

Each is reachable from Mesh > Transfer Texture > <method>:

Method Strength Weakness
POLAR Smooth, fast, body-centered Loses fine alignment at the periphery
REGIONS Honors authored region masks Requires hand-painted regions
FLOW Optical-flow-driven; captures direction Needs two related source images
TPS Thin-plate spline through landmarks Quality is landmark-quality dependent
BBOX_WARP Maps bounding box → bounding box Coarse; needs follow-up
SWEEP Sweeps along a curve Curve must be authored
LANDMARK Direct landmark warp without bake Diagnostic / debug
(Apply) LANDMARK_APPLY_FULL TPS + per-region weighting in one shot Slower

The pipelines are the "do everything" combinations the Designer recommends. Both produce a baked albedo + a derived normal map as their last step.

Polar + Bake + Normal Map (PBR)

Used in chapter 5 of the Blue Morpho tutorial.

  1. Polar warp: maps the source onto the model's UV space using polar coordinates centered on the model's body.
  2. Bake: writes the warped result to textures/<placement>_albedo.png inside the .esk.
  3. Normal map: derives a high-frequency normal map from the source's luminance.

Strengths:

  • Closed-form math → fast (~3-5 seconds on baseline hardware).
  • Body acts as a stable center; non-flat surfaces handle well.
  • Smooth gradients; right for iridescence, gradients, and pattern continuity.

Weaknesses:

  • Wing-tip detail is approximate; fine alignment at peripheries drifts.
  • Not ideal for hard-edge text or sharp small features.

BBox-Warp then Landmark Gaps + Bake + Normal Map

Used in chapter 6.

  1. BBox-Warp: maps source bounding box onto model UV bounding box.
  2. Landmark Gaps: identifies where BBox loses accuracy (typically wing tips, body-wing junction) and re-runs a thin-plate spline locally over those regions using the landmark pairs.
  3. Bake: writes the combined result.
  4. Normal map: derives normals from the result.

Strengths:

  • Precise pattern alignment on small features (eye spots, veins, text).
  • Honors hand-placed landmarks; matches author intent more closely.

Weaknesses:

  • Slower (~8-10 seconds).
  • Quality depends on landmark count and accuracy; 6 well-placed pairs is the sweet spot.

How to choose

Use Polar when:

  • The source photo and the model are close in proportions.
  • You want smooth, iridescent / gradient looks.
  • You want fast iteration.

Use BBox + Landmark Gaps when:

  • Source and model differ in proportions.
  • Sharp pattern alignment matters (text, symbols, sharp features).
  • You will hand-touch up afterward (the bake is the starting point, not the finish).

Chapter 6 of the tutorial demonstrates running both and A/B-ing.

Standalone methods (manual pipelines)

The eight standalone methods are reachable without the bake-and-normal-map post-steps. Useful when:

  • You want to compose a custom pipeline (e.g. TPS into a separate layer, hand-tune, then bake yourself).
  • You are debugging a recommended pipeline that did something unexpected.
  • You are porting an existing wing texture from another tool.

Run a standalone method, inspect the result, then either bake manually with Mesh > Transfer Texture > Bake to Albedo or move on to another method.

Performance and texture sizes

The baked output's resolution is configurable in Preferences > Texture Transfer > Bake Resolution. Default 2048 × 2048 (8 MB at sRGB 8-bit). Drop to 1024 for tutorial-grade output, raise to 4096 for marketing-quality.

Re-baking is destructive on the placement's albedo channel. Bookmark the project's history state before re-baking so you can revert.

See also