For an unknown reason, sometimes the toolbar is disabled. If that
happens, you need to unload and load PolyUnwrapper from the Utility
panel.
I've been getting this one LOTS since the very last update.. and seem to be too moronic to find Polyunwrapper or anything similar in the Utilities. I think it's triggered when I maximize the UV window, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. The only fix that seems to work is reinstalling Polyunwrapper and restarting Max. (2014x64)
I've been getting this one LOTS since the very last update.. and seem to be too moronic to find Polyunwrapper or anything similar in the Utilities. I think it's triggered when I maximize the UV window, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. The only fix that seems to work is reinstalling Polyunwrapper and restarting Max. (2014x64)
I am sorry you are experiencing this so often.
To solve it you can reload PolyUnwrapper from the Utility panel, which is much faster than restarting Max, but you should not need to reinstall PolyUnwrapper.
In the Utility panel, just click on the MAXScript button, there you will have a dropdown menu from where you can open the PolyUnwrapper Utility and Load/Unload it.
This is one of the very weirds bugs that I've been trying to hunt for a very long time, yet I have no clue of what can cause it. It only happened to me a couple of times since the PolyUnwrapper development started, and I have never been able to reproduce it.
If it happens to you so many times and you find a way to consistently reproduce it, I would greatly appreciate if you could provide me with more information and I will be happy to fix it.
Ah, there it is - hadn't checked the Maxscript button, thanks. And to be honest I went back to 4.2 for now and haven't had a problem since.. maybe once I've hit my current deadline I'll reinstall the latest and attempt to confirm my lame bugreport. Thanks again!
To be honest, you are the first one reporting this bug ever so I always thought I just something that happened in development, as there is a bunch of code going on and we don't restart max for every little change we make. Until now I was the only one that suffered it a couple of times.
If it does not happen in version 4.2, then it might be some other bug, as in v4.2.4 I added a last minute feature (got several requests) that I had in development to keep the toolbar always undocked. I wouldn't be surprised if something was messed up, as I wanted to provide a quick fix for the latest found bags ASAP and didn't have the time to fully test it.
If someone else is also experiencing this issue, please let me know. Meanwhile I will review the code for undocking the toolbar and see if I missed something.
I am really sorry for this, even when it might take 10 seconds to reload PolyUnwrapper, I know how annoying and frustrating it can be, and I also know it is my responsibility to provide a bug free tool, but sometimes it is really hard to fix what I can't see. Knowing that there is a bug but not being able to reproduce it is like working on the dark.
Don't sweat it - 4.2 works perfectly fine for now, I'll get back to you when I have a little more time on my hands
(Oh, and I noticed that your packing algorithm doesn't seem to take Max's UV grouping into account - not that great a feature anyway so it probably doesn't matter much though)
- NEW Advanced UV Randomizer now accepts 0 values when randomizing - Added Tooltips description to the Randomize UVs buttons - Fixed Center & Fit nor working correctly with very large UV Shells - Fixed bug that disabled the Toolbar when "Always Bring Up the Edit Window" feature was on (Max 2014+) - Fixed Toolbar not always opening when "Always Bring Up the Edit Window" feature was on (Max 2014+) - Fixed bug in Normalize algorithm not being able to handle very low areas - Fixed bug when an unsupported model was selected and the Toolbar would remain closed after new selections - Fixed Toolbar not being destroyed when plugin was unloaded - Fixed stability issues with PolyUnwrapper Custom Parameters - Fixed "Used Area" text color in UV Template Render window for Dark themes - Fixed Render Edge Width not being saved
Yes, it would be possible to create a tool for welding Identical UV Shells, as well as "somehow" group them and respect the groups for some operations.
The current way the Unwrap modifier groups works is by face, no by UV Shell, so if you group 2 Shells, but then break one of them, they are not ungrouped but kept as a whole group of faces, even when you have broken one of them into different UV Shells.
The operations I can think off to use groups are the Normalizing and the Rectangle packer.
Would you please describe what or how would you like the groups to behave?
Please feel free to email me directly with any suggestion you have. If I have time, I might be able to create a little helper tool for welding UV Shells to help you.
@PolyTools3D For welding, do you intend to implement a system that would work
specifically with your own tools, or do you have an idea how to create a system that would work with the standard UV tools as well? Looking at the Maxscript reference, I couldn't find any way to weld stacked verts onto each other like was possible in older versions of Max.
@PolyHertz Welded UV vertices could be defined as a single UV vertex sharing two or more geometry vertices, so a tool can be created to process them. Except for speed, there is no need for a build in method to do it, it can be scripted.
Although I am not thinking which other tools would support it, the result is the same as if you copy/paste welded UV vertices. So it should work well with any tool that supports welded vertices.
The difference would be that the vertices would not be reordered, so if you have two or more already unwrapped and stacked UV Shells, their UV Topology would remain the same. This is not always the case with Copy/Paste as it needs the geometry topology to be the same, otherwise the vertices will be assigned a wrong position and so the texture would be distorted.
To make this welding tool really useful I think you'll also want to support uv shells which do not share geometry vertices. Mirrored UVs are not the only overlaps. If you copy a mesh element around in your model that also creates UV overlaps. Wheels of a car for example. Keeping those overlaps linked together through UV operations would be very helpful.
Yes Eric, that's the way I think it should work. When I mean "…a single UV vertex sharing two or more geometry vertices…" the geometry vertices do not necessarily need to be shared. In fact, most of the time they will be different geometry pieces.
So, basically, for each UV Vertex, there must be two or more Geometry Vertices in order to weld them together.
As you say, car wheels for example, whose UV Shells are stacked, should be welded together.
What I'd love to see, too, is the ability to copy and paste UVs from one face to another. A program I've used in the past called Creator has a plugin that you can use to paste textures in a really simple fashion. You select one face, click copy, then select another face and click paste. The UV data is transferred seamlessly. It's really useful for creating stacked UVs quickly because you can grab the UVs underneath interpenetrating geometry and paste those UVs onto the penetrating geometry. Like a box shoved into another box. The outward face would share the exact amount of UV space taken up physically by the interpenetration without needing to remap the UVs again and align them back to where they were by hand.
I'll gladly pay extra for this functionality, assuming it's possible.
My Polyunwrapper stubbornly refuses to remember to start in docked mode (despite setting everything to save).. anybody in the same boat? I'm on the latest version.
My Polyunwrapper stubbornly refuses to remember to start in docked mode (despite setting everything to save).. anybody in the same boat? I'm on the latest version.
Have you tried setting "Toolbar Allways Undocked" off?
Hey Jorge, another two suggestions to fill your list.. ;-)
- a ffd-like tool for quickly mashing shells into the form you'd like (without having to fool around with peel mode) - ability to use the SG-from-Shells function without having to add an Unwrap modifier to the model first (from a quad menu, for instance)
..better packing (more intricate than just bounding boxes) would be sweet, but that's an often repeated suggestion I'm sure
Replies
I've been getting this one LOTS since the very last update.. and seem to be too moronic to find Polyunwrapper or anything similar in the Utilities. I think it's triggered when I maximize the UV window, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. The only fix that seems to work is reinstalling Polyunwrapper and restarting Max. (2014x64)
To solve it you can reload PolyUnwrapper from the Utility panel, which is much faster than restarting Max, but you should not need to reinstall PolyUnwrapper.
In the Utility panel, just click on the MAXScript button, there you will have a dropdown menu from where you can open the PolyUnwrapper Utility and Load/Unload it.
This is one of the very weirds bugs that I've been trying to hunt for a very long time, yet I have no clue of what can cause it. It only happened to me a couple of times since the PolyUnwrapper development started, and I have never been able to reproduce it.
If it happens to you so many times and you find a way to consistently reproduce it, I would greatly appreciate if you could provide me with more information and I will be happy to fix it.
Thank you!
Jorge
If it does not happen in version 4.2, then it might be some other bug, as in v4.2.4 I added a last minute feature (got several requests) that I had in development to keep the toolbar always undocked. I wouldn't be surprised if something was messed up, as I wanted to provide a quick fix for the latest found bags ASAP and didn't have the time to fully test it.
If someone else is also experiencing this issue, please let me know. Meanwhile I will review the code for undocking the toolbar and see if I missed something.
I am really sorry for this, even when it might take 10 seconds to reload PolyUnwrapper, I know how annoying and frustrating it can be, and I also know it is my responsibility to provide a bug free tool, but sometimes it is really hard to fix what I can't see. Knowing that there is a bug but not being able to reproduce it is like working on the dark.
(Oh, and I noticed that your packing algorithm doesn't seem to take Max's UV grouping into account - not that great a feature anyway so it probably doesn't matter much though)
http://www.polytools3d.com/polyunwrapper
What's New
- NEW Advanced UV Randomizer now accepts 0 values when randomizing
- Added Tooltips description to the Randomize UVs buttons
- Fixed Center & Fit nor working correctly with very large UV Shells
- Fixed bug that disabled the Toolbar when "Always Bring Up the Edit Window" feature was on (Max 2014+)
- Fixed Toolbar not always opening when "Always Bring Up the Edit Window" feature was on (Max 2014+)
- Fixed bug in Normalize algorithm not being able to handle very low areas
- Fixed bug when an unsupported model was selected and the Toolbar would remain closed after new selections
- Fixed Toolbar not being destroyed when plugin was unloaded
- Fixed stability issues with PolyUnwrapper Custom Parameters
- Fixed "Used Area" text color in UV Template Render window for Dark themes
- Fixed Render Edge Width not being saved
Would it be possible to add something like this: http://polycount.com/discussion/155292/3ds-max-uv-script-to-weld-overlapping-vertices
Or at least some of the suggestions in the thread regarding Polyunwrapper respecting Max grouping for operations?
Thank you for your feedback.
Yes, it would be possible to create a tool for welding Identical UV Shells, as well as "somehow" group them and respect the groups for some operations.
The current way the Unwrap modifier groups works is by face, no by UV Shell, so if you group 2 Shells, but then break one of them, they are not ungrouped but kept as a whole group of faces, even when you have broken one of them into different UV Shells.
The operations I can think off to use groups are the Normalizing and the Rectangle packer.
Would you please describe what or how would you like the groups to behave?
Please feel free to email me directly with any suggestion you have. If I have time, I might be able to create a little helper tool for welding UV Shells to help you.
Thank you!
Jorge
For welding, do you intend to implement a system that would work specifically with your own tools, or do you have an idea how to create a system that would work with the standard UV tools as well? Looking at the Maxscript reference, I couldn't find any way to weld stacked verts onto each other like was possible in older versions of Max.
Welded UV vertices could be defined as a single UV vertex sharing two or more geometry vertices, so a tool can be created to process them. Except for speed, there is no need for a build in method to do it, it can be scripted.
Although I am not thinking which other tools would support it, the result is the same as if you copy/paste welded UV vertices. So it should work well with any tool that supports welded vertices.
The difference would be that the vertices would not be reordered, so if you have two or more already unwrapped and stacked UV Shells, their UV Topology would remain the same. This is not always the case with Copy/Paste as it needs the geometry topology to be the same, otherwise the vertices will be assigned a wrong position and so the texture would be distorted.
So, basically, for each UV Vertex, there must be two or more Geometry Vertices in order to weld them together.
As you say, car wheels for example, whose UV Shells are stacked, should be welded together.
I'll gladly pay extra for this functionality, assuming it's possible.
- a ffd-like tool for quickly mashing shells into the form you'd like (without having to fool around with peel mode)
- ability to use the SG-from-Shells function without having to add an Unwrap modifier to the model first (from a quad menu, for instance)
..better packing (more intricate than just bounding boxes) would be sweet, but that's an often repeated suggestion I'm sure