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3 Dimensional Chat / annoying art of 3Ds max uv unwrapping...

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lazerus
16
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Joined: 30th Apr 2008
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Posted: 14th Jun 2009 23:54 Edited at: 15th Jun 2009 00:01
Ahh the annoying art of 3Ds max uv unwrapping,

Yes i know most of the advanced options but i want to know a few more ways of doing it as you see am stuck in a rut'

i want to know how to unwrap a model around a set edge/seam , such as the pic psoted below, the only problem is i havent the foggist on how to do it, i normally just used alot of adrenaline and sat off moving each part seperatly. i can het it perfect that way but i could only pull it off with models i really had a hope for,

anyway the the general idea am aiming for is ( excuse the analagy)

Cut a orange on one side and peel it open flat,

pic is below,

any help would be greatly appreciated,

I would have just posted this in my thread but am going to update it with the newest version of the person model, plus its getting quite messy lol

-cb


Freedom has always had a price... Most will never know it, Some will pay your dept,

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Oolite
19
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Joined: 28th Sep 2005
Location: Middle of the West
Posted: 15th Jun 2009 00:34
I'll explain, you need pelt mapping.
Do this for me, get a piece of paper, paper with a grid on if you can, now screw it up but leave the corners of the paper available to pull on. This is your UVs now, all messed up and overlapping. Now grab the corners and pull them outwards, this should bring the paper smooth enough to draw on, now place it on the table and smooth it out. This is pretty much what you are doing, but in a virtual space. By this process of selecting a seam (the tops of the seams pretty much make up the corners of where you are going to be pulling from) it enables the computer to know where it should move all the vertices to and get a nice clean shape. The process of you smoothing out the paper on the table is the manual clean up thats needed afterwards (everything always needs clean up...)
Lets Go.
You should have manually broken up the sections you want to UV map in the Edit UVW's window before hand, the green lines represent edges that aren't attached together within this window. (You can do this by selecting the parts in the UVW window you want to UV seperately and going tools>detach edge verts, or ctrl+D)

I see you have selected the seams, these are for pelt mapping so once you are done with manually detaching all of the sections you want to UV, untick show map seams and select the edges from where you wish the model to be unwrapped from.
Like so:

You see how i've detached the two faces that make up the ends of the cylinder, this is because i don't want them to be included when i pelt map them. Now click select Face and select the polygons that you wish to be included in the pelt mapping process, this should be apparent already because you should have already manually done this beforehand. After selecting your faces, click on Pelt. In the UV window you will notice that a 'guidance circle' with loads of lines going towards your mesh has appeared, you can rotate, scale and transform this around to get a better pelt mapping solution, i usually try to aim it so there are the least amount of lines overlapping each other. Basically these lines represent where its going to be pulling each vertex towards, it may take a few tries but you will get the hang of it. Once you are happy with how your 'guidance circle' is looking press start pelt.

3ds max has just pretty much done most of the work for you, with a little clean up you should have a workable UV map to texture on, now you just have to do it with most of the other parts of your model.
A little tip, It's always worked better on organic models for me, the modifier tends to give an organic flow when unwrapping so i wouldn't recommend using this method for anything really square, just a tip. It also works really well on faces, a lot more cleanup is required but i could talk you through my process if you decide to use this method for unwrapping the face on your character.
Hope it helps.

Sid Sinister
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Joined: 10th Jul 2005
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Posted: 15th Jun 2009 01:23
Ugh, pelt mapping. Why bother? I don't like Max's unwrap system either. XSI's looks nice though.

Try UV Layout: http://www.uvlayout.com/

UV Mapping pains solved.

I know UV Layout doesn't look like much, but I just keep using the Demo and I'm able to Unwrap models in minutes, even the most advanced ones. Watch a few of the tutorials and get a feel for the hotkeys.

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" - Isaac Newton
Current Project: http://strewnfield.wordpress.com/ (Last updated 06/11/09)

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