Hey Phloptik,
Yes the simple version of the Explosion, the one which just disconnects all polygons. BodyPaint 3D is certainly a cool application and I believe pretty much underestimated.
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I know it is not very popular to say, but UV editing is a core skill for 3D work - as long as one has to deal with texturing.
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The UV edit is not really complicated, but certainly need more than 5 minutes to learn it.
UV is the glue between 2D images and 3D objects. It is a translator between these two worlds. Practically a “twin” of each polygon is “drawn” flat (perhaps distorted) to the image. So the application knows where to put the specific image information on the 3D polygon (—the twins stay connected).
As each image has a different size/resolution, the UV space is measured in 0-1 for u as well for v. Think of the UV space like XY space in Illustrator, After Effects etc. You place the twin Polygons on the canvas and they show then up on the 3D model. All in all a fantastic option to control!
The whole “game” about UV is the idea to direct the positions of these twin polygons—as you might have a lot of polygons on your object. Take one hour to focus on that theme and you might get closer to the idea, that it is not that complicated.
All the best
Sassi