9.5.2

774 • CHAPTER 17
OBJECT MANAGER • 775
Stick Texture
This tag pins down all textures onto the object’s surface so that when parts of the object are deformed
in some way — such as lips smiling and then frowning — the texture is locked to the surface and
deforms along with it.
The usual way to pin textures down is to use UVW mapping. However, UVW mapping is problematic
when used with HyperNURBS, especially when the cage moves from an area of few points to an area of
many points. This is illustrated in Figures 1 to 4, below. Figure 1 shows the polygon object before it is
placed in the HyperNURBS. Figure 2 shows the object in a HyperNURBS and a texture applied with Flat
projection. Compare Figure 2 with Figure 3 and you’ll notice that the UVW map in Figure 3 is warped
for no apparent reason. Put simply, UVW mapping doesn’t work very well with HyperNURBS objects.
In these cases, use a Stick Texture tag instead of UVW mapping to pin down the texture (Figure 4).
Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4.
How does this work exactly? When a Stick Texture tag is created, CINEMA 4D creates a reference of
the object’s point and stores them in the Stick Texture tag. If you then distort the object, CINEMA 4D
compares the new state to the stored state and adjusts the projected texture accordingly to ensure it
stays pinned down and moves with the mesh.
As soon as you add points to a Polygon object, the stored reference becomes
invalid. However, this is usually not an issue when using deformation objects
since a new reference is created automatically before every deformation.