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Well, here is my problem. I make my models in Animation Master, no problems, and I export in .obj to UU. In UU, I do all my UV mapping. Everything works great. Then I export to .x, and when I reload the .x file, all the vert welding is gone. I've noticed this is also the case with the models from TGC, since most of them are also exported by UU. It seems like UU is making faces from UV coords, and its very frustrating. Sure, I could "live" with the extra verts, but the thing is, its the wrong lighting result. Faces are too bright or dark, because the normals are always 90 degrees to the vert. I suppose I could call calulate normals(), but, I want this right. I've sent an email to the developer. Funny thing, of all the export plugins I have, only .obj works correctly. Anyway, here is a .zip file to demonstrate what I am talking about. If anyone knows of another unwrapper that doesn't have this problem, let me know. Must be able to import .obj, and export .x correctly. Thanks. BTW, its a little footbridge model, like what you might see in a garden. You are free to use it if you want.

im not sure about the details... and i didnt download your zip. I know in blender the issue is the way uv coords are calculated. Blender uses face data for uv mapping while .x uses edge data. Usually when you export export extra verts are created to simulate the origional uv mapping method. I dont work with .obj at all but my guess is that this might be whats happening. From what i understand from Kira (Blender export script programmer for 2.49, 2.54) there is a more efficient way to work this but so far he (or anyone else) hasnt done this because it would be a major pain in the but and the reward would be minimal...

Now to reiterate this is what i understand from exporting to .x from blender... not .obj so i might be way off base. But i would assume this to be the case if uv coords are defined per face rather then edge .obj and would require the same conversion process.

Google shows this for unwarp utils
http://www.sharecg.com/v/5169/Software-and-Tools/LithUnwrap---Free-UV-Mapper-for-Windows

http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

http://www.uvmapper.com/

and heres something interesting that im probably not going to mess with at all... but its here..
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44949

i personally just use blender and its built in uv features... so im not really familiar with any of these but i hear good things about lithunwarp so you might want to give that a try.

ah, its like this. The .obj models look the best, and can work with quads so it makes mapping alot easier. Everything is perfect as far as .obj goes. I got a reply back from Brad Bolthouse (UU developer) and he says this:

which is not entirely true. We went thru this a while back with welding verts, in fact, I wrote some code to weld verts for terrain objects a while back that solved this problem. I guess I'll have to see if I can modify it to work with all models.
As for LithUnwrap, I believe thats the precursor to Ultimate Unwrap. It sure would be nice if DBPro could import .obj. .3ds and .mdl have the same problems.
Going to keep looking for a solution.

ok, yeah, there is NO way around this at all. And this, to me, is a serious limitation of the .x format. Since uv's are paired to vertices, and if you "weld" the model and only index the minimum verts you need, all the mapping for the duplicate verts are ignored. So, I guess I just live with it. Sorry for all the trouble.

regardless if you use .x or not if your dealing with dx at all youll have the same problem im sure. The key to using a different file format is loading it in a way that dx understands... but you seem to have a fair grasp on that... im curious if a blender .x does the same thing in dbpro...