Renzatic on 17/9/2014 at 01:51
Now you goofed up your top edge a bit, but that's easily fixed by selecting your outermost corner edges on your center segment, and dragging them down a bit, like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_25.jpgIf you find it still doesn't look quite right, just play around with your edges and faces along the edge until you think it looks good.
So there you have it: a gravestone that's rounded everywhere save the very bottom. Of course you could've just played with the depth and thickness sliders on the INSET tool to achieve the same effect, or even the bevel tool, but it would've rounded the bottom up a bit (which would've been easily fixed in fewer steps by selecting the bottom faces, and scaling on Z until it's even).
The reason why I went the long route here is because it works as a primer on you how to mold your geometry. Pretty simple stuff, but it (hopefully) works as a good primer.
Modelling at its most basic is adding resolution via cuts, extrudes, and bevels and sculpting your objects into the desired shape, adding more and more resolution to refine it to a higher and higher level of detail. Think of it as chunky sculpting. You want to add a shape extruded off the base of your model? Then add the appropriate cuts, mold it into shape, and extrude away!
It's not much different than what you do in Dromed, with a much higher level of control.
But hey, we're not done yet. We've still gotta UV this thing, which shouldn't take more than 5 seconds to do.
Hit CTRL+TAB and select EDGES.
Now before I go on, think back to what I said earlier about UVing. Think of it in chunks. What do I need to cut away to make this unfold and flatten smoothly in a square space? Where do I add my seams? How will it unfold?
Now there is a rhyme and reason to it all that does take a bit of practice to perfect, and it's one of those things you have to screw up as much as you succeed to really get it down. But the process itself is pretty easy. Especially here, on this simplest of objects.
So what do you need to cut? Well, those flat spaces on the front are easy enough. They should get their own island. But do you include the beveled edge with it, or separate it with the center segment?
Actually, both would work. But you'd have to make your seams slightly different depending on which you do. For the sake of tutorializing, I'm gonna do them both.
First, we'll start out with adding the beveled edge in with the flat front spaces, and attaching the left segment to the front flat space, and the right to the back, leaving the top center segment, and the bottommost piece on an island to themselves.
So what does that look like? This'll be my first seam, the front and left segment with the beveled edge included. I already went ahead and isolated the bottom, by the way.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_26.jpgNotice that one little edge I selected? That'll separate the top bevel arch from the left bevel, kinda making it its own little tab, so it won't stretch and distort right there when Blender goes to flatten it out.
Let's go ahead and mark those Edge Seams by hitting CTRL+E to bring up your Edges Menu, and selecting Mark Seam. It'll turn red.
Now let's do the same thing on the opposite side.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_27.jpgIf you found you messed one up, set a cut where you don't want a cut to be, just hit CTRL+E, and select Clear Seam.
...yeah, that sounded condescending. I DON'T MEAN TO BE!
By this point, you're model is ready to unwrap. Go up to your Screen Layout dropdown menu at the top (detailed earlier in the UI layout writeup), and select UV editing. You should see something like this...
(
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_28.jpg) Here
Now select your entire model with A in your perspective window on the right, and hit U to bring up your UV Mapping Menu. Select Unwrap.
(
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_29.jpg) Bam!
...wow, that was easier than I thought it'd be. I expected I'd have to do some light adjusting at least, but Blender did a good job packing everything into the UV space. It's unwrapped, and ready to be textured!
Yeah, it really is that simple.
Though there are occasions when Blender won't pack everything as well as it should, or it'll pop some islands in diagonally, rather than horizontally or vertically. That's easy to fix, since you can move, rotate, and scale on the 2D plane using the same hotkeys you do in 3D space.
But now that I'm on it, let's go ahead and do an alternate unwrap. Like I said, we'll make this one so the front flat pieces of your grave are their own islands, and the center segments are separated into three different pieces.
If it isn't already selected, hit A to select all the geometry on your object, hit CTRL+E to bring up your Edges Menu, and hit Clear Seams. Like I said before, this won't make any changes to your current UV. The seams are only for the unwrapping process.
Now let's go ahead and start making new ones. Isolate your front faces, like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_30.jpgMark your seams. Now isolate your bottom segment.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_31.jpgYou obviously don't have to select every edge, just the ones not currently marked. But if you're really uptight, you could do them and remark those seams without hurting anything.
Next, select your corner edges along the center segment, and mark them.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_32.jpg...and it's ready to unwrap. This new unwrap will overwrite your old one automatically, so you don't have to worry about anything clashing or conflicting
(
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_33.jpg) And there you go
Simple, clean, decently packed, and ready to texture.
UVing is not difficult. Though it can get a little tedious when you're working with a model with lots of geometry.
One of the things I do need to get into are some of the options you have in the UV menus, specifically your selection options. But I'll save that for the next tutorial, when I add more detail to this model, and get into Uving by selecting faces, and stitching vertices together in the UV editor to make larger islands.
Renzatic on 17/9/2014 at 08:15
INTERMISSION
Renzatic on 17/9/2014 at 08:16
Part 3
Before we begin an entirely new model, let's go ahead and add a little more detail to what we've got. From my brief experiences importing models into Dark, it can handle models around 1200-1500 tris fairly easily. Right now, we're sitting around 140 tris, so we've got plenty of room to play around with. Easily enough to make our gravestone a little more interesting.
We're gonna expand the base, give it a little lip, inset a cavity into the front of the grave, bevel that lip with two segments to give it a smooth transition, and add a cross to the top.
We'll start with the base, and I'll use a technique that's a little difficult to work with at first, but is something you'll use constantly once you get a feel for it.
What we'll be doing is deleting the faces along the bottom of the grave, grabbing the loop, and extruding those edges out and down. Yeah, I could do the same thing by extruding the faces down, then extruding those new faces out, but like I said before, different techniques work better in different circumstances, and it's best to learn as many tricks as you can.
...which is why I'll be covering both.
First, go ahead and select all your geometry by hitting A, and removing all your seams with CTRL+E, Clear Seam.
Now, edge extrudes. Start by htting CTRL+TAB, selecting FACE, selecting, and deleting your bottom faces (hit X or DEL to bring up your delete menu, and select faces).
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_34.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_35.jpgHit CTRL+TAB, select EDGE, and select your bottom loop by hitting ALT+RMB.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_36.jpgNow this is where things get interesting. I picked up this trick a long time ago, and it's gonna seem strange at first glance, but it gives you tons of control and flexibility.
What we're gonna do is active the extrude tool, and commit it without actually moving anything. What this'll do is prime a set of faces you can scale, move, or rotate without taking multiple actions, so long as you have that edge loop selected after you commit.
It's handy in the sense that it gives you more control of your geometry, dangerous in the sense that if you accidentally drop the edge loop, you now have a set of coplanar faces that you can't easily reselect. You'll either have to run a merge across the entire model to recombine those coplanar verts, or undo with CTRL+Z.
Yeah, I made it sound scary, but it's really not. If you goof up, it's easy to fix, and the more you do it, the less you goof up. I use this technique constantly. I whipped up the basic shape of my lamp post I showed off earlier using it. It'll give you more control than face extrudes or insets, and save you a ton of time.
But anyway, enough justifying. Let's show it off. With your edge loop selected, hit E, and LMB without moving your mouse. You'll know you've done it right when you see that your selection is broken up a bit, because it's Z-fighting with the edges underneath.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_37.jpgNow, hit S to scale, and scale it out.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_38.jpgThere you go. Your new geometry, made from a single loop. It's a little uneven, so hit S & Y to scale it back into shape.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_39.jpgNow let's repeat the process again. Notice how you never dropped your edge loop? That's the handiest thing about this. You can build any continuous shape you want in one unbroken process. You never have to stop to select difference faces, or verts, or other edges. You just build. Now hit E, then LMB without moving the mouse, then hit G & Z to drag it down.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_40.jpgAnd do it again. E, then LMB without moving the mouse, G & Z to drag it down, but this time hit S to scale it out, so you get a little slope.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_41.jpgOne more time. This time, bring it straight down, but only by a tad.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_42.jpgThere you go. You've now got a base. This technique actually works best with the move manipulator up, so you can just grab a handle, and use the scale tool as an aside. I'm just walking you through the longer process to drill the hotkeys into your head.
But now you don't have any faces on the base. That's easy to fix. You should still have your edge loop selected. Just SHIFT+LMB the left and rightmost edges, like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_43.jpgThen hit SPACE to bring up your search command, and type “bridge” (actually bri is enough to bring it up), and select “bridge edge loops”. There you go. Your base. All quads, all nice and neat.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_44.jpgThat search command is pretty handy, by the way. You don't have to go digging through the interface for a tool, or look up a hotkey for a tool on the internet. It'll bring it up, and show you the hotkeys for a tool right next to it if it's got one assigned.
Now for the alternate method of making our base.
Select the faces on the bottom of your gravestone, like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_45.jpgRenzatic on 17/9/2014 at 08:17
Hit E to extrude your faces, and Z to constrain your mouse movements to the Z axis, and drop it down.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_46.jpgNow CTRL+TAB, select FACES, and this time, hit ALT+LMB on one of the vertical edges making up your new segment to select that loop of faces.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_47.jpgNow we're gonna run the INSET tool. Hit I, zero out what needs to be zeroed out, then use the Operator Window to drag it out.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_48.jpgNow hit CTRL+R to run the LOOP SLICE tool along your new section, and give it a little cut along the bottom.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_49.jpgRepeat the INSET from before. CTRL+TAB, FACES, ALR+RMB to loop select those new faces, I to INSET, and drag out to taste.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_50.jpgNow for a handy little trick. To scale that out, you think you're gonna have to select all those faces individually?
Nope. Do this. Select the center faces, like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_51.jpgThen hit CTRL+NUM PLUS twice to grow your selection, like so.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_52.jpgThen hit the S key, and scale it out.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_53.jpg...and since we made it a little too shallow, hit G+Z to move that base down a bit.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_54.jpgLastly, let's extrude that last section down. Since you've already got those faces selected, just hit E, then Z to lock it to the Z axis, and bring it down.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_55.jpgThere you go. Alternative method base. Now you can see why I prefer the previous method for blocking out basic shapes. That said, everything I just walked you through does have its purposes. You'll be using insets and bevels for all kinds of stuff.
...but we've got a little problem. All that extra, unnecessary geometry along the base.
That's easy to fix. We'll use limited dissolves. What this does is removes any edges or vertices while keeping the underlying geometry intact. It's hard to explain what it does, but you'll know exactly what it's doing when you see it in action.
Select these edges here (I know which ones to select through practice, just remember you're trying to keep everything quads).
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_56.jpgHit SPACE, and start typing “limited” until you see “Limited Dissolve” pop up. Select it, and...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_57.jpgThere you go. Of course we could've deleted those edges entirely, and bridged them again in a quarter of the time, but you wouldn't have learned a cool new trick if we did that.
I'm not going for efficiency here. I'm cramming technique and tools in your face.
Next up: Insetting a cavity in the face of our gravestone (easy), and making a cross on the top (moderate).
Renzatic on 26/9/2014 at 22:54
INTERMISSION
Renzatic on 27/9/2014 at 02:02
Sorry for the long delay, folks. Got into Wasteland 2 in a big, bad way. Now that I'm regularly getting my ass kicked there, I figured it was time to take a break, and get back to this.
Yeah, I'm easily distracted.
This next part of the tutorial will mark the final section of our gravestone, and if the interest is there, serve a foundation for a more complicated model. We'll start with the previously promised inset.
Now we could just start it all out by grabbing the faces on the front of our gravestone, hit I, and adjust to taste, but I want to do something slightly different starting out. We'll begin by hitting CTRL+R, and running a loop slice along the top half of the front, like so.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_58.jpgTry to make it roughly as thick as the cuts running vertically along the top.
Now, do the same along the bottom half. Same deal.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_59.jpgYou'll see that there's a slight bend to your new cut, since it's trying to roughly follow the contour of the geometry. Fix it by hitting S to scale, Z to constrain it to the Z axis, and dragging it down oh so slightly.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_60.jpgIf you're really anal retentive (like I am), zoom in close to the edge and do the scaling from there. Blender scales, rotates, and moves things at a scale relative to the distance from the camera. If you want to do fine changes, and the controls don't feel fine enough to do what you want to do, zoom in a bit, and perform the action there.
Now we should have enough geometry to make a little square cut in the center of our grave. Switch to Face Select with CTRL+TAB, and select these six faces:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_61.jpgNow, hit I, zero it out on width, and make it yay deep on depth:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_62.jpgLooks alright, but a little plain. Let's run the inset tool again, and give it some detail. Hit A to drop your current selection, and reselect the 6 faces inside your new cavity.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_63.jpgHit I to run the Inset Tool again, but this time, only play with the thickness slider. Zero it out on depth, and drag out thickness about yay much:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_64.jpgDrop your selection with A, and...well, you know, I bet you're all sick of having to select those faces over and over again, aren't you? Let's fix that right fast.
See that little check box labeled “Select Outer” just a couple of boxes below your Depth slider in the operator menu? Uncheck it, and now your Insets will always keep your initial selection active, rather than the changes it makes.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_65.jpgHandy! Now, let's bring our faces back out slightly, creating a little groove in the front of our gravestone. Zero out the Thickness slider, and set Depth to about so:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_66.jpgLet's repeat this process one more time, to create an inset ring inside our cavity. Hit I, zero out depth, and set the thickness slider so you have a small ring.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_67.jpgNotice how your edges are getting a little cramped along the bottom, as those far edges start angling outwards more and more? Yeah, that's Blender being a little goofy, but it's easy enough to fix. Do it by hitting CTRL+TAB, switching to vertex selection, grab all the vertices along the bottom, save for the two on the farthest edges, hit S to scale, Y to constrain it, and drag it in until it looks about even.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_68.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_69.jpgI know. When you're first learning this, it seems like a lot of work. Really, that's about 3 seconds worth of effort once you get used to it. A minor detail you have to adjust. Don't let little things like this scare you.
Renzatic on 27/9/2014 at 02:04
Getting back to the project at hand, now that we have our little scaling issue fixed, select those same 6 faces, hit I, zero it out on Thickness, and slide the Depth in.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_70.jpgThere you go. A nice little cavity with a nice little bit of detail thrown in for good measure. You can keep going on with it if you want, but I think it's time to start working on something more interesting: our cross.
We'll start by adding some geometry to the top of our gravestone. Hit CTRL+R to activate your Edge Slice tool, but this time, before committing the cut, scroll your middle mouse wheel up three times to make three edges, like so:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_71.jpgHit CTRL+TAB, and enter face selection mode, and select the 4 faces at the center-top most section of your grave.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_72.jpg….well, actually, no. That's a little too rectangular for my tastes. I'd like it to be a little more square. We could grab the left and rightmost edges of our selection, and use the scale tool to bang it into shape, but that'll mess up your curvature. Let's try something a little different: Edge Slides.
To clarify, what edge slides do is, well, slide edges. That at least is pretty self explanatory. But the thing that isn't immediately obvious, and the thing that makes it so nice is that it tries to maintain contour while it's sliding those edges. Think about the second stage of an Edge Slice, but able to be applied far more specifically. It's a perfect tool for this little task.
Switch to Edge Selection with CTRL+TAB, and grab the two leftmost edges of what will soon be your square.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_73.jpgSince Edge Slide don't have a hotkey assigned to it, you'll have to call it up through the search menu. Hit SPACE, and type “slide”. You'll see three selections. Obviously the bottom one without a hotkey on it is the one you want.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_74.jpgSelect it, and slightly nudge your edges into position.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_75.jpgLike just about every Blender tool, you can continue playing with it from the slider in the Operations window once you left-click to confirm.
Now let's do the right side. Select those two edges, hit the Space, and...well, it's already there. The search menu will keep the last command you ran through it active, so you don't have to search time and time again if you have to use that tool a bunch of times. Handy again! Nudge your edges into position, same as before.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_76.jpgIf you look at the top edge, you'll notice it did a pretty good job maintaining the contour. This is one of the many nice things about this tool.
But let's get back to building. Hit CTRL+TAB, go into Face selection, and select those 4 faces yet again.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_77.jpgNow hit E to bring up the Extrude tool, and bring it out like so:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_78.jpgNow hit S to run the scale tool, and do a generic inward scale. This'll be the tapered base of your soon to be cross.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_79.jpg...eh. That's a little high. Let's fix that right fast. With those faces still selected, hit G, then Z to constrain it to the Z axis, and bring it down a bit.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_80.jpgI also want to flatten out that curve along the top. We'll fix that by zooming in, hitting S to activate the Scale Tool, Z to constrain it, then drag it in to make it flat.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_81.jpgRenzatic on 27/9/2014 at 02:09
Now, hit I to run the inset tool, and drag it in about yay much:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_82.jpgHit E to activate the Extrude tool, and drag it way the hell on out!
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_83.jpgHit CTRL+R to activate the Edge Slice tool, and place the cut about here, near the center of where you want the future arms of your cross to be.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_84.jpgWith that edge still selected, hit CTRL+B to activate the Bevel tool. Drag it out so it's making a square roughly the same size as the body.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_85.jpgNext, hit CTRL+TAB, go into Faces selection mode, hit A to drop your current selection, and grab the two opposing faces on the left and right side.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_86.jpgNow, hit I to activate the Inset Tool, set Thickness to zero, and drag it out on depth.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_87.jpg...so why the inset tool instead of extrude? Because Extrude likes to pull everything in one direction. Inset makes changes relative to the surface you have selected. Generally speaking, I tend to use Inset for faces, Extrude for edges. Though like everything, I'll sometimes mix and match depending on the scenario. Like I used extrude above to pull out the main body, since it was a little quicker than using Inset there.
And there you have it ladies and gents, a nice gravestone ready for Thief!
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_88.jpgI'd call it a day, but we've still got one last thing to do: we've gotta UV this thing. It's a little more complicated than our last example, so it'll make for great practice, and show off a few better techniques
Renzatic on 27/9/2014 at 02:14
BREAK!
Renzatic on 27/9/2014 at 02:15
We'll start out the same way we did before. Hit CTRL+TAB, switch to Edge selection, and start selecting your seams for marking. Like before, think of it as a single object you want to flatten out. Decide what edges you need to cut, and what needs to be separated. Let's begin with the easiest parts. Mark the seams that'll separate the front and back of the gravestones. Ignore the base for now.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_89.jpgHit CTRL+E to bring up your Edge menu, and select Mark Seam.
Now, your cavity. There's no way you'll be able to unwrap that, and keep all the inner edges proportional, so we'll have to separate it entirely. Select the outer seams surrounding it, and the 4 edges that mark the transitions from vertical to horizontal edges.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_90.jpgHit CTRL+E, and mark those seams.
Now we can leave the inner edges attached to that small part of the wall behind it, but the little lip can't be attached to anything else without distorting it. We'll have to separate it entirely. Select the edges surrounding it, like so:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_91.jpgProtip: Remember to Alt-Rightclick to elect entire edge loops. Sometimes it'll select too much or too little, but it's a handy way to get a bunch done without having to make multiple small selections.
Now that the lip has been isolated, how can you unfold it? Well, there's a couple of ways. I'll do it by separating the left, right, top and bottom sections into their own islands, like so:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_92.jpgOur cavity is now UV mapped. Let's get to the outer edges of our gravestone. This'll be easy. Just separate the top, left and right sides. While we're here, let's go ahead and cut away the base of our cross, too.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_93.jpgRemember, CTRL+E, and Mark Seam. And they're cut.
Oh, wait. We forgot one little part. Let's go ahead and cut the corners of our bevel along the front, so it doesn't distort when we go to unwrap.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_94.jpgNext up: the base. First, separate the two sections. CTRL+Rightclick will grab the whole thing at once.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_95.jpgNow, let's cut away those diagonal edges, so they'll be little tabs, but still connected to the flat base, like this:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_96.jpgCTRL+E, and MARK THOSE SEAMS!
Now we'll do the same thing for the next step. Separate the bottom from the step:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_97.jpgThen separate the corner tabs, same as before.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_98.jpgThose edges beveled a little weirdly, so the resulting UV might look a little odd. But don't worry, they'll be proportional.
And you're done with the base! Next up: The cross. This'll be interesting, because you can't just unfold the whole thing at once. You'll have to put some tabs on one cross face, and some on the other, so they don't overlap. Since it'll be kinda hard to explain step by step, I'm gonna follow a slightly different method to build it up.
First, let's get the base done. Shape like this are kinda weird. For this, I recommend giving each edge it's own little island, like so:
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_99.jpg Now for the cross. Now this is where we'll do something a little different. Instead of selecting the appropriate edges, and unfold it in one go, we're gonna divide the whole thing up into individual facets. Separate all the faces on the cross, like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut/Grave_Tut_100.jpg