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Cubic Mapping
Unfortunately for many artists, XSI doesn't offer cubic mapping. You have to create it by hand. So here's a tutorial that shows you how.
Download the project folder here.
Getting started - Using subprojections - Editing UVs
Start with a fresh scene. Create a cube (Get > Primitive > Polygon Mesh > Cube).
Leave the default values, close the property page. Then apply a material. I can by anything, but let's take a Lambert. (Get > Material > Lambert).
Again, leave the default values and close the property page.
Now we'll apply a pattern map that I created in Photoshop. (Render > Get > Texture > Image).
In the property page that pops up, next to the Texture Image drop-down menu, click on New > New From File.
Browse to the PatternMap.tga and click Ok.
Then let's create our first texture projection. Next to the Texture Projection drop-down menu, click on the New > Planar XY.
This will create a projection for the front and back of the cube. You can see it by the Texture Support newly created (the green square).
Close the current property page.
Now, turn the C viewport into a Texture Editor. Next, click on the top right icon of the Texture Editor and choose Horizontal. This will expand the Texture Editor to all the bottom of the interface.
Enter into Polygon mode by pressing U. Select the side polygons of the cube. We will apply a sub-projection to those polygons.
In the Texture Editor, click on the Planar Subprojection button and choose YZ Object.
You can see by looking at the new Texture Support that the projection is pointing to the side:
Let's do the same, but for the top and bottom polygons. Select them, and in the TE, do Planar Subprojection > XZ Object.
Result:
Deselect all polygons by doing Ctrl+Shift+F on your keyboard.
Now we must set the UVs right. We could leave them as they are, it would work because of the uniformity of the texture. But in case you want to put something less seamless, we'll need more editing.
Select the back side polygon. In the Texture Editor, click on the T button, and with the right mouse button, move it to the far right.
Deselect the samples in the Texture Editor (Ctrl+Shift+A)
Then to the same with the side polygons. Put the "left" side polygon at the left of the texture space, and put the "right" polygon at the right of the texture space.
Deselect the samples in the Texture Editor (Ctrl+Shift+A)
Now let's to the top and bottom. Select the "top" polygon, and move its samples above the texture space. Deselect all, select the "bottom" polygon, and move it under the texture space. Use the middle mouse button to translate vertically only.
Deselect all.
One little thing we need to do now, it to flip some of the sample parts. Activate Island Selection by clicking on the ISL button in the Texture Editor. Now, whenever you select something, all the samples of the same group will be selected.
Select the left island, and do Tools > Mirror Horizontal.
Do this also with the back island.
Now, select the bottom island, and do Tools > Flip Vertical.
Then, we'll have to align the samples together. What we'll do here is we'll align the islands, using the translate tool, to remove the space between them, resulting a cross shape.
We now need to weld everything
together.Exit the ISL mode.
Select one set of overlapping samples, and click on the Collapse button.
Repeat this for every set of overlapping samples.
Ok so we are near the end! Now, select all the sample, and scale them down to make them fit into the texture space. Use the Scale tool with the right mouse button to scale uniformly.
Finally, the only thing we have to do, is to freeze the projection. Open the Explorer. Expand the cube's node. Expand the clusters folder. Expand the Texture_Coordinates_AUTO node. Select the Texture_Projection (Planar XY), wich is the projection, and hit Freeze. You'll that the name changes to Texture_Projection (Explicit UVWs), and the Texture_Supports that were there have vanihsed.
That's it for the tutorial. If you put the camera viewport in Texture Decal mode, you should have something like this:
