SFAM Mirroring technique

[ninersix]

I was looking at this piece of work from the SFAM comp and found a technique that has been used that I am not familiar with.
I was wondering if someone could clarify the technique for me.

On the UV texture sheet for this model the red circled area is the part in question.
It is the side of the car with 'POLICE written on it.
There is only one side visible on the UV sheet, but it appears on the model on both sides.
At first I thought its just mirrored/duplicated across to the other side of the axis, but then if this was the case the texture would appear incorrectly at first.

If the UV's for the duplicated piece where flipped, the texture would face correctly, but the uv layout for that piece would not be the same shape as the original and you could not have both pieces overlapping on the uv layout.

This is a puzzle I have not figured out, any help appreciated...

[Pankake]

There must be a poly that surrounds the text, and is flipped on the UVs for the other side.

[Xoliul]

Not that much of a trick to it, it's really easy once you know how to do it. Just make sure the piece of text is mapped exactly on a symmetrical polygon (rectangular, NOT trapezoid or parallelogram). Then once you're past the symmetry, select the mirrored polygon, detach it in UV'S and flip it over the right axis.

I did the exact same thing here:

http://i42.tinypic.com/eg3kax.jpg

Don't have texturesheet here but will post it when I get home.

[ninersix]

Thanks for the reply Xoliul, but i don't quite understand what your saying.

I understand how it can work for a square/rectangle, (you just flip the uvs.)
-But his texture sheet displays a piece of geometry that is not symmetrical...

[Tiros]

Well, as they were saying here. They take the small model, flip it, and the text will be inverted. Then they create a new polygon covering the area of the text, make sure it aligns in the uv's and covers the text there too, and then flip it. So you don't flip the whole model, only the polygon

[Xoliul]

You should see the wireframe to understand, niner.

[Ghostscape]

yeah you need to see the wireframe to understand it.

When you figure it out you'll flip your shit and be amazed, its totally awesome. I used it on a bunch of assets in Red Faction Guerrilla, most notably the EDF flag

[satan]

You learn something cool each day. Didn't know about this. Thanks guys.

[Saephon]

It took me three read-throughs of Tiros' post, but I understand the technique now. That IS really so simple it makes me bang my head on the wall.

[hljmdjrs]

Valuable information.