How do you recommend I overlay textures on object 'Faces'

Question

I have started making this map as you can see below with the help of this team. I have made some textured images to use for the 'room' that I have made with CrazyBump. Now I tried to import the image as a plane. However that stretches the image out and is not what I am looking for. What I would like to do is be able to select individual subdivisions or boxes if you will and be able to say put this image on this box or that box.

How would you all recommend I go about doing this. I am interested in knowing some different approaches so I can look into the different options.

I have a hardwood flooring model I made that I would like to insert in the recessed parts of the image.

Thanks

EDIT:

I created a new project for a test bed. Added a plane, increased scale by 8 and then subdivided by 15. Next split the screen and made the new side UV/image editor. Next I went back to the original side and right click a box, then pressed B key and dragged over a random group of boxes. Next pressed U >> unwrap and then U >> smartUV project. On new screen clicked image >> open image >> floor image

Now the whole thing goes pink at this point. Not sure why, even though the UV side of things is okay. Now I scaled the image out and then added the same texture from the material tab to the texture tab.

Now what I am left with is what I am talking about the brownish area around the textured squares I chose

On a side note, what books would be recommended to teach you how to use different function of blender.

Answer 1

First of all, import images as planes creates a new mesh, dimension as the image of your choice, unwrapped and with the texture applied: it's not what you're looking for, you want to apply a texture to your already prepared mesh.

There are many approach to this task:

In your case I would go like this:

Numpad 7 and toggle 5 to get orthographic top view, select all horizontal faces, U to unwrap, project from view, rename the UV map as something like "UV Top view".

Then H for hiding already unwrapped faces (Alt H to return to whole mesh)

Numpad 1 to front ortographic view, select vertical and visible faces, create new UV map (plus sign), rename it as "UV front view", U to unwrap, project from view, and so on .....

Then choose different UV maps for every part of the mesh when texturing.

The concept is to create different UV maps mapping useful portion of your mesh in the most useful way. It's good to have a single UV map only if you want a seamless texture over the whole mesh, but I think you're not going to use the same texture on walls, floors and ceilings!

Then we can think about the floor as example of workflow:

Set a new material for floor, set your images textures (even with bump, spec, ...) select all floor faces, in the UV editor window select all and S - scale the "top view" UV map as desired scale (i'm assuming everything is tileable); in the Image editor you can use S X to scale the UV map along the horizontal axe, and S Y in the vertical one, to achieve the desired overall scale and minimum stretching of the texture.

You will have to specify to all your textures the correct UV map.

It's more difficult to say in words than do it: experiment it with a simple mesh and a couple of textures.