UV Unwrapping and Texture Painting

Unwrapping

1. In Edit Mode, select edges for seams (right-click → Mark Seam) along hidden or natural boundaries.
2. Select all and press U → Unwrap.
3. In the UV Editor, check a checker texture for even squares (no stretching).
4. Pack islands to use space efficiently.

Smart UV Project gives fast automatic results for hard-surface objects; manual seams give cleaner results for characters and organic shapes.

Texel density

Keep the texture resolution per surface area consistent, so no part looks blurrier than another (unless deliberately, for hidden areas).

Texture painting

In the Texture Paint workspace, create a new image, paint directly on the model with brushes, use stencils and masks, and save the image (unsaved painted images are lost when Blender closes).

Baking

Baking renders information into image maps:

• Normal maps from a high-poly sculpt onto a low-poly mesh.
• Ambient occlusion for contact shadows.
• Procedural materials into images for game engines and the web.

Set up: select the high-poly source then the low-poly target, choose the bake type in Render Properties (Cycles), enable "Selected to Active", set extrusion/cage distance, and bake to an image texture node selected in the target's material.

Exercise

Unwrap a low-poly game prop with clean seams, bake a normal map and ambient occlusion from a high-poly version, paint wear details, and export a GLB that looks correct in an online glTF viewer.

Check yourself

• Where should seams be placed?
• What is texel density?
• What does "Selected to Active" mean when baking?