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A low poly spaceship

Without net access there wasn't much to do. However, modeling was one of the few things I actually could do. Fortunately I had some recent version of Wings3D installed. A few futile attempts later I got something that looked alright. Semi-satisfied with my low poly (52 polygons, 104 edges, 54 vertices) spaceship I went ahead texturing it with Inkscape.

Since the intended rendering size is rather small there isn't a need for fine details. I also wanted to try some bold semi-futuristic look with a touch of military blandness. Using vectors seemed like the most natural choice. Hard vector edges also fit the flat shaded rendering a lot better.

Before I could start with the texturing I had to do the UV mapping first. UV mapping is a bit annoying in Wings3D, but it's alright for simple models. If you aren't familiar with the term: it's about which part of the texture goes where on the model.

After the UV mapping was done I created a mesh texture over in Wings3D and exported it.

Figure 1: The mesh

Then I imported that mesh image over in Inkscape, put it in a layer on top, and locked that layer. This makes it easier to tell where you're supposed to draw what kind of features. Whenever I wanted to check things I exported it from Inkscape and refreshed the (externalized) texture over in Wings3D.

Figure 2: Texture with mesh overlay

At the end that mesh layer is simply hidden. Well, usually you'll have toggled the visibility of that layer a dozen times at this point.

Figure 3: The final texture

The scalability is a big advantage of SVGs. You can create differently sized textures with perfect crispness easily. If you only need one size finding the right one is a snap. And even if you change you mind later it isn't much of an issue. Additionally, it's very intriguing if you want to create mipmaps off-line (i.e. not at runtime).

Figure 4: Comparison of different export resolutions

Using Inkscape for this and similar texturing tasks is very effective and actually sort of fun. The UV layout isn't the best in this case by the way. It's laid out as if there are details all over the place, which apparently isn't the case. All those single color faces could have been collapsed and everything with the same color could have been stacked up. If I would have done that, a 128x128 texture would have looked as good as a 256x256 one.

If you're wondering about those saturated blue edges of the wings, those thin faces use Wings3D's hole material, which makes them disappear if the model is exported. This approach is fine if only the front faces are rendered. It's simple but not necessarily the best thing to do.