Maya UVs - peltwrap, layout, etc

Sinking

Maya is pretty much my favorite 3D program so far. However, it lacks some functionality or hides it so damn well from me that I have to wonder if the function really isn't there.

1) Pelt Wrap, or "organic" unfold

I really forgot what the correct name is, but basically you can see (in the image file) that I detached the center of the radiator grille and unfolded it for proper/straight projection.

Now the other piece has a huge hole in it, so naturally I want to cut it on top and in the middle and unwrap the double "U" shape into straight lines to the top and bottom; more into a "T" shape. However, I don't find any function for this kind of organic unwrap. I know, I used to do it all the time in HeadusUV, but I don't have a license any more and would prefer to do everything in Maya. So how would you suggest I unwrap this piece?

***see attachment for image***

2) Layout

The UV editor has a layout function which always completely rearranges the UV, even if I only want to place one UV-shell I changed. This is quite annoying, since Layout does a nice job at scaling everything to relative sizes and I keep having to move the single shells I worked on by hand and scale them by rule of thumb.

Is there a way to freeze the other shells and/or place just the one shell I have been working on?

Bartalon

The Pelt Wrap equivalent is the Smooth UV Tool in Maya. UV Texture Editor Window > Tool > Smooth UV Tool

A small UI element will appear next to your selected UVs, labeled Unfold and Relax. Left click and hold, and drag to the right to tick through the smoothing calculations.

If you want to retain a shape, you can "pin" UVs by deselecting them then using thee Smooth UV tool as usual. Maya will attempt to calculate the best possible positioning of all other UVs in relation to the UVs that are not selected. Sometimes you need to finagle some UVs to the desired position (such as a straight line) then unfold/smooth the other UVs to get those to also settle into a more desirable position. Smooth UV Tool only works on one shell at a time. Advanced pinning options are located in the Unfold UVs Options (Polygons > Unfold UVs).

Unfold UVs is sort of an automatic version of Smooth UVs that attempts to calculate the end result of the Smooth UVs tool. These can have similar but different results, and Unfold UVs tends to work far better and faster the closer your shape is to a primitive (with the proper UV seams cut, of course).

I don't think there's a way to add a shell using Layout. Generally because of this, I wait until the very end of the modeling portion of my pipeline before I try packing UVs.

P.S. Layout works best if all mesh objects have frozen transformations. If an object has scale values other than 1, this affects the shell size when Layout is performed.

Sinking

I'm using Smooth UV all the time, but it doesn't really do the kind of organic unfolds, which Headus does by pressing ctrl+f on a uv shell. I only used Smooth Uv for minor stretching, e.g. when I was unwrapping a kind of box shape with four cuts on the corners. If this is the best Maya has I will get a Headus license again, because it is a whole different level.

Is there no better option for organic unwrapping in Maya? Are there maybe some recommended tutorials where someone uses the Smooth UV function for a complex/stretch unwrap?

I have watched (and recommend) this one, which makes things a lot easier, but the unwrap is still poor, compared to Headus.

http://vimeo.com/16590844

Also, yes , freezing history + translations is a thing I do frequently, not only because it makes things more stable, but also, because the history stack eats up a lot of RAM and needs to be cleaned from time to time (I only have 8 Gigs).

Bartalon

I suppose it depends on your shape. The guy in the video doesn't seem to be having any troubles unwrapping his stuff. Are you saying even that is too slow?

passerby

This isn't too great for hard surface stuff but using this in Maya with the lscm mode is great for organic shapes.
http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

You can cut your texture borders in Maya and just use lscm or uhr the live unwrap.

Aside from that if you use the Maya unfold tool, just use it on one axis at a time, and pin the borders if needed.

Sinking

passerby wrote: »

Aside from that if you use the Maya unfold tool, just use it on one axis at a time, and pin the borders if needed.

That is what he explains in the video too. Works fine for most of the shapes.
What is the lcsm mode though? Maybe I am not using it to its full potential.

I downloaded the demo for Headus again it was much more precise and faster than Maya. I like how Headus shows me stretched polygons in a direct way _(it colors them red).

From what I've tried so far, I'd say, Maya worked pretty perfect for hardsurface for me. However, for the rest, I'll probably get Headus again. It's not that I couldn't have done the UVs in Maya, but for this particular unfold problem, Headus was the better choice. This vehicle doesn't really need "organic" unwrapping, but I was curious why Maya was giving me so bad results.

Here are some pictures of the WIP texture + Model. Last picture is from UDK, as a static mesh (diffuse+normal plugged in). I'm working on the final textures now.

passerby

lscm and abf are in roadkill UV that i linked, which integrates with Maya, they are unwrap styles that are based on modos and blenders unwrap code, that is very similar to headus for organic stuff.

Sinking

And that is the solution! Thanks passerby. I am colorblind, so I actually missed that link the first time. It appears nearly grey to me. Great idea of all the websites to have stuff either in red or green and never in yellow or blue, grrr...

passerby

ya only downside for me with that app and script is it trashes your 2nd UV set, but I can get around that by doing it to a copy of my object, and using transfer attributes to move uvs from 1 mesh to a other.