3dsMax 2017 Problems with proper UV Island Scaling

NostalHAJ

Hello Folks!

I was trying to unwrap my viking shield. While doing so i deactivated "normalize map" in the uvw modifier.
Everything seemed fine to me, but now i run into issues when i try to properly pack them. The scale of the different UV islands in comparisson to each other seems totally off. Some parts are so tiny, i can barely see them in the 0-1 space.

This is how it looked before i packed it:


And this how how it looked after i chose "pack together" . Any other packing option seem to give me the same issue concerning scaling in comparison to each other. The scews are super tiny even when not put in 0-1 space.



Hope somebody can help out i tried reset xform but that didnt seem to help. 
(dont worry about the "normalize map" being turned on atm, it wasnt during the unwrapping process i believe)

My units are centimeters both as "unit setup" and "system unit setup".

Thanks!

musashidan

Select all and click rescale elements. This will normalise the texel density relative to the geometry/uv island scale.

NostalHAJ

Ok it seems they were the right size. It just seemed weird to me that some parts were so tiny compared to other parts but i guess thats normal with things like screws, bolts etc.

Does it make sense, to scale certain UV islands up compared to others? For example the front parts of the shield , since they will be more visible and would benefit from a more UV space (what does that actually increase practically?).

Or should i cut some parts (like the bars in the upper picture) in half so i can uniformly scale everything up to cover more of the 0-1 space?

Thanks for the help!