.3DS Export Texture Duplication

ozftw

Apologies for two threads in relatively quick succession, seemed appropriate to give this issue its own space, and I was unable to find threads on this topic using the search function.

Following on from my previous thread, I successfully UV mapped a section of model using thomthom's Quad Face Tools:

My thanks again for helping out with that, although a new problem has appeared.

This model is ultimately bound for a game, and to convert to that game's native file format, the model needs to go through 3Ds Max. When exporting to .3ds format from SketchUp however, presumably due to the UV mapped surfaces as mentioned above, duplicate textures are produced in the export. That is, what I have in my SketchUp as 'Tunnel.png', which is then mapped as necessary, is exported as Tunnel01.png, Tunnel02.png etc, with each duplicate reflecting its orientation/scaling in the UV mapping:

If I were to simply apply the materials without any such UV mapping and export to .3ds format, this does not occur. It is a problem as the game will not recognise the surfaces these duplicate textures represent unless I include all of the duplicate textures in the texture file (which is brutally inefficient).

Has anyone else encountered this .3ds export problem, and is there a way to get SketchUp to export the model and textures properly without this duplication problem?

Again, my thanks to anyone who can help.

*I know it ought to be possible to export the SketchUp model and do the mapping in 3DS, but I guess like everyone else here, I love SketchUp for its simplicity of use over other modelling programs. I don't have the foggiest idea how to perform similar tasks in 3DS that I can in SU.

Gaieus

Unfortunately this is indeed an issue I have encountered myself, too (and already raised it to the SU Develeopment Team). It does not only happen with 3ds export but also with fbx and dae (the ones that I have tried so far).

The only solution currently is to

UV map onto a coplanar face (collection of facets for the curved tunnel). This can be done with TIG's new plugin here)
Then right click on one facet and make it unique
now select all the facets and right click > combine texture
Now right click agai and texture > projected
finally sample this projected texture from the projected surface with the Alt+Paint tool and apply it back on your tracks.
Rather convoluted and there is a risk of messing things up.

Alan Fraser

Yes, unfortunately all of the UV tools available for SU tend to do this, because when push comes to shove SU doesn't really have any real UV system.
Gai's suggestion is good if you want to stick with SU...but it may reult in some fairly large maps.
Alternateively, you could wait until it's in Max to map it...or if that's too tricky try something like Ultimate Unwrap 3D, which is much easier to use, pretty cheap and has the added bonus of being able to export the resulting mesh in a dizzying number of formats.