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Shared UV Workflow?

Daaark
polycounter lvl 17
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Daaark polycounter lvl 17
Hey guys, I'm just wondering what your workflow or methods are when you unwrap a model, and a lot of it will share the same UV space?

For instance, I have this store front facade I'm about to draw a texture for, pictured below. The four windows at the top, both sides of the arrow sign, and all the steps going down the door should share the same texture space.
workflowhelp.jpg

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Currently, I've been deleting faces, UVing one set of them, and then cloning the UV'd set of polygons back to where I deleted the old ones. (EG: UVing just one window, and then pasting the others back on.)

This feels very sloppy, and with things like the steps, I end up with extra vertices I have to remember to go weld again, and then if I want to change them I have to restart the whole process.

So how do you guys go about this? Do keep all the polygons, and just painstakingly line them all up? Or is there an easier way for this?

Replies

  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    Thanks for the valuable insight.
  • Ghostscape
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    Ghostscape polycounter lvl 13
    Personally, I'll use the system you're talking about, copy and pasting mostly.

    Depending on complexity I may instead maintain all of my duplicated areas as instances, unwrap one, collapse them down into a single object, weld, and then eventually merge that into the whole piece to fit it onto a texture sheet.

    Most often, though, I use the duplicate mesh after unwrap, because that makes managing my UVs for normal map bakes very easy, since I can offset the UVs for all the duplicates before welding.

    Are you familiar with the snap tools? That may help you manage the copy/weld stuff better?

    You shouldn't need to re-work most of your UVs afterwards, and really shouldn't be making mesh changes if you can avoid it with something like this, so I'm not sure why you're having issues with needing to 'restart the process'

    to be honest I'm not sure what sloppy issues you're running into, and I would assume that those are more related to unfamiliarity with the tools/workflow eccentricities than anything else - I use Max so I can't walk you through everything step by step, but doing this kind of work is very easy with Max with snap to vert, modifier stacks, etc.

    Also, lose the attitude on a help forum. Getting snarky because someone didn't answer your question immediately isn't going to win you anything in life or love.
  • Ben Apuna
    My current method is:

    1. Create unique "blockout" cubes for each unique mesh in the scene.
    - At this stage be mindful of where you place the pivot for each cube.
    - If you are using UDK this is where you export your "blockout" cubes to UDK with proper names and set up your package.

    2. Instance the different cubes to populate the scene and check for scale issues.
    - Be mindful of the orientation of each cube.
    - If you are using UDK this is the point you initially set up your scene with instances in the editor.

    3. Model each object using the cube as a guide for scale.

    4. Replace each instance "master" cube with it's corresponding model.
    - The scene will update automatically due to the way instances work.
    - Double check to make sure the meshes in your scene are still fitting together properly.
    - If using UDK import the updated models into the package using the same names that the "blockout" cubes were using. This way the "blockout" cubes are replaced with the updated models and nothing needs to be moved back into place.

    5. UV each master instance.
    - Obviously the UVs on all instances will be updated by this action...
    - If UDK re-import updated models with UVs into the package replacing models without UVs.

    6. (optional, but I like to do it) Save out a separate scene in 3D app with only the "master" objects to explode for texture baking.

    Disregard the UDK stuff if you aren't using UDK. I just added that stuff in there for those that might be using it.
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    Okay, looks like I'll mostly have to keep doing what I was doing.

    I found a way to line some of the stuff up easily doing a projection unwrap.

    Snapping doesn't work very well, it tends to snap the whole selection, instead of the center of the selection (unlike how a mesh would snap). Or the windows would be very easy.
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