3DsMax: UV along Splines.
polycounter lvl 17
I have lots of cables, ropes, wires, and even gutters in a scene I am working on. These things are already modeled and compressed into Editable Polys. I am wondering, how would I unwrap them, QUICKLY? The textures are small (some only 64^2), and need to repeat along the shape.
Any suggestions? I seems like a basic thing that I should already know, since I have been using max for years, but this one is getting under my skin.
Any help is appreciated.
((Yeah I tried doing a search first, came up with a lot of great pimp threads with ropes and cables and whatnot)).
Any suggestions? I seems like a basic thing that I should already know, since I have been using max for years, but this one is getting under my skin.
Any help is appreciated.
((Yeah I tried doing a search first, came up with a lot of great pimp threads with ropes and cables and whatnot)).
Replies
textools has some useful tools too http://www.renderhjs.net/textools/
Now the dirty way i do it quickly :
planar mapping
select one uv edge
loop
break
relax
select one horizontal uv egde, ring+loop, align horizontal
select one vertical uv edge, ring+loop, align vertical
swear to remember to check generate mapping coords next time
Make your pipes, wires, ropes and tubes from splines and auto generate UVs it might mean cleaning up a few areas here and there because you will more than likely make mesh edits but it still might be easier than trying to unwrap after the fact. Still the methods renderhjs and Noors outlined should help you out now.
To get the spline in the video that renderhjs posted, you can normally select an long edge and click convert to shape. Or you can use a spline painter script to paint a spline down the surface of the object. Graphite modeling tools had one included in 2011.
If you're on an older version check out Soulburn's scripts he has a great object paint and spline painter set of scripts. Personally I find it a bit better than what they included in 2011 but installing scripts can be a bit of a pain.
If you turn on "Real-World Map Size, it will more than likely generate something that doesn't need to be squashed, stretched or scaled and it should match decent textel density, but that depends on how the scale and units are set up.