Roadkill helpful UVer

TWilson

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

I'm sure many of you are aware of this tool or it's mother UV Layout. But I just discovered it out of necessity. Handy little bugger. Don't let it do everything for you but it saved me time in uv assembly.

SHEPEIRO

ace little program when you know how to use it (not hard) had it for a while cos mayas unfold sucks

pliang

My firewall won't let download for any reason.

Valandar

It's pretty simple and self-explaining. But it can't really do the job on its own, you gotta use it with something else so you can rearrange the shapes and fit them better on the map. Yet for free, it rocks. Only thing is, if I had the money, I'd drop it and replace it with UVLayout.

Michael Knubben

UVLayout's design is quite dreadful though, I find. the interface makes me cringe, but it does work well. But not well enough to justify the price!

Sage

I liked uv layout because of the symmetrical uvs. It does the pelt that max does but pretty much automatic no playing with springs. It was really fast. I did revisit the pelt in a max after playing with uvlayout and got better results with pelt in max.

Alex

PolyHertz

I find uvlayouts relax/optimize function to be superior to max when it comes to minimizing distortin (2nd only to DeepUV, which has its own problems), but that's about all I use the program for sense, like MightyPea said, it's interface is horrid.

SHEPEIRO

i use it in maya and its so fast for level work on big naturalistic surfaces, esp when you dont care about the layout

any probs with stretching and a quick cut and shove sommit over the seam to hide it oh i love loose rocks

rooster

is good crack, ive had it fail to load a model a few times, which can be fixed by an export to obj

SHEPEIRO

its usually down to messed up geom. usually a cleanup in maya fixs it

pior

It's like love at first sight! Thanks guys for posting the link, I remember hearing about it some time ago but never tried it.

It's also so nice that this tool is compatible with different packages. I really enjoy how more demanding content creation is pushing forward the birth of cool focused tools like that. Xnormal, Crazybump, now this ... I'm kindof glad to see the days of all-in-one dinosaurs apps coming to an end. I guess all in one is good for lowpoly work, but todays that just doesn't do it anymore it seems.

TheSplash

I know it's free, but is there any point in using this over a 3d packages unwrapping tools? Are there better algorithms or something?

Valandar

In my case, it's because I just can't get the hang of Max's unwrapping tools. This is just easier, for me.

SHEPEIRO

mayas unfold is very flaky in my experience and quite slow compared to this on big (level floors) surfaces, this is fast and reliable.

a tip for level work is to cut (split) all the seams you want so that re-unwraps after adjustments to the topology are just a button away.

rooster

yeah mayas relax uvs sucks

CrazyButcher

shameless plug http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmax
various tools were created using the same techniques, first seen in Blender, just like that tool, I ported the LSCM tech to 3dsmax directly. However it doesnt have the "live interactive" unwrap feature that both blender and dedicated tools have... but other than that, similar workflow

sir-knight

kinda fun to use roadkill... but it only works with editable mesh... (silly question follows)

I go back to poly, everything is cut into Tris, is there a way around this?


btw, butcher, I tried your LSCM, but I don't think it installed properly, the plugin as far as I know loads, no error comes up (LSCMUnwrap_6to8.gup) and I ran the install script but when I try to use it, nothing happens.

CrazyButcher

the issue has been resolved, via private messages, was a "how-to use maxscripts" issue.

sir-knight

yeah and the roadkill issue was fixed too

Thanks guys... gave me more things to play with this week

romi

big thanks to CrazyButcher's LSCM unwrap tool for Max! a tool i cant live without and has become part of my daily work.

cheers,
Rom
snowblindstudios.com