On Day 8, we shift gears slightly from modeling and focus on the often-overlooked but critically important aspects of model cleanliness and readiness for game engines: pivot management, history cleanup, and UV mapping fundamentals.

The first part of the day focuses on pivot management—essential for proper object placement in game engines, animation rigs, and scene organization. Students will learn how to reset, center, and custom-align pivots to ensure intuitive object manipulation and export consistency. This ensures a chair snaps perfectly to the ground, or a door rotates correctly on its hinge.

Next, we cover construction history cleanup. During modeling, every extrusion, bevel, or merge leaves behind construction data. If not deleted, this data can cause performance issues or strange behavior in game engines like Unreal. Students will learn when and how to delete history, freeze transforms, and apply naming conventions for clean scene hierarchies.

The final portion introduces UV unwrapping, the foundation of texture application. We start with simple UV projections (planar, cylindrical) and progress to unwrapping a low-poly object. Key concepts include understanding UV shells, seams, stretching, and maintaining proper texel density. Students will see how poor UVs lead to distorted textures and how good UV layout improves both performance and visual quality.

This day builds essential habits for a clean pipeline. A well-pivoted, history-free, and properly UV-mapped model is easier to texture, animate, and export. Mastering these steps early saves hours of rework later and ensures every model is production-ready.