What is a good free UV mapping tool that allows me to copy and paste UV maps from objects that are similar? The one that 3ds max has built in always heavily distorts the uvs for me when I copy and paste.
This really won't help other then to explain the madness.
3ds will only copy/paste perfectly between object that have the same vert table. Each vertex is assigned a number and those numbers are organized in a table. If you merge or detach objects the vert numbers/table changes.
So for example if you had a box and you cloned it, you could copy/paste the verts. But if you attached one box to the other then split it off again, the vert numbers are reordered and no longer match, you'll get garbage.
If the only thing that has changed between the two objects is the vert table you can use Morphix (http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/morphix) to make one match the other. Then copy/paste will work, but that only works on seperate objects not on elements within an object. So its kind of a pain because you end up splitting things off, running morphix then rejoining them...
Would be awesome if it worked as advertised instead of as intended... I feel your pain...
yeah when i heard of 3ds max's copy past UV I was all excited until I tried it. It semi worked, or at least looked liked it worked but there was heavy distortion in it.
If you want freeware tool for non-commercial work, try Softimage Mod-Tool's GATOR property - you can copy uv sets even between objects with different topology, or shape. Works for me.
Projecting uv's works reasonably well if your highpoly models are not too complex or selfintersecting and the lowpoly model is of similar shape.
There are huge problems around the uv-seams of the lowpoly, though, since Max won't be able to tell where to put the seam on the highpoly. So if you have just a box for the lowpoly, that problem will be very evident cause you have those seams all over the place and many polies are not clearly assigned to a certain poly of the box. You can help that a bit probably (didn't try it ) by assigning matching ID's for that areas and tell the modifier to project only the corresponding ones. Also be sure to adjust the cage, like pixelmonkey said.
Alltogether projecting uv's is quite unpredictable and needs a lot of cleaning up, so you'd be perhaps quicker by unwrapping the highpoly, especially considering the great unwrap tools that Max8 has now. Even matching uv's to already existing layouts/bitmaps is quite comfortable with them, imho. If you have zillions of faces or if your geometry is faulty due to import reasons you could try to use procedural 3d textures and local uv-maps/masks for areas that need to be painted.
so apparently seams can go messy (which is fairly reasonable) but to me it sounds interesting enough to give another new script idea a try - which is just like the thread title: projecting UV's from 1 object to another and store changes it in a unwrapUVW modifier.
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3ds will only copy/paste perfectly between object that have the same vert table. Each vertex is assigned a number and those numbers are organized in a table. If you merge or detach objects the vert numbers/table changes.
So for example if you had a box and you cloned it, you could copy/paste the verts. But if you attached one box to the other then split it off again, the vert numbers are reordered and no longer match, you'll get garbage.
If the only thing that has changed between the two objects is the vert table you can use Morphix (http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/morphix) to make one match the other. Then copy/paste will work, but that only works on seperate objects not on elements within an object. So its kind of a pain because you end up splitting things off, running morphix then rejoining them...
Would be awesome if it worked as advertised instead of as intended... I feel your pain...
from:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3727554&postcount=10 so apparently seams can go messy (which is fairly reasonable) but to me it sounds interesting enough to give another new script idea a try - which is just like the thread title: projecting UV's from 1 object to another and store changes it in a unwrapUVW modifier.
but there is also map thief from chuggnut
http://www.chuggnut.com/Scripts/mapthief/mapthief.htm
check the link for example screenshots- looks pretty nice