How would I efficiently unwrap these models without repeating myself over and over?

Shuriken UK

Its been quite a while since I've done any 3D modelling, but I still have enough of an understanding to kind of flesh out the models in my head, its just that I've always had a bit of trouble finding and locking off an efficient workflow that isn't sort of counter-intuitive. For example, right now I've decided to go back and finish my Japanese building set. I've done most of the modelling side, but its the UV'ing that I couldn't deal with. I feel like I've dug myself into hole, UV wise.

Things like these roof support rafters. Extremely simple geometry (kinda tricky to make tho lol), but when it comes to UV'ing each of the 3 size variations, it seems like I'll have no choice but to completely repeat the same process 3 times, which is gonna be a counter-intuitive pain in the *rse lol. It will probably end up being the same case with the other segments that are only variations of themselves. Heres some pictures of what I mean:-

The groundfloor walls (only difference is one has its door separated)


The rafters (They're practically identical, is there no streamlined way of doing this?)


The roofs (again, practically identical. One is curved, one isn't. Can you not copy & paste the UV's?)


The 1st floor walls (As you can see, only 1 tiny difference, but a LOT of messing around with UV's for both variations...)


Thanks to anyone who can spare a few secs to shed some light on this! I want to get this UV'ing done, but most of it is going to be like UV'ing each model 3 times if I cant get it sorted out (in other words: "AAAARGHH FFS Man!!")!

Cheers!

r_fletch_r

programs like 3dcoat and uvlayout let you copy uv's between islands with the same topology.

Shuriken UK

R_Fletch_R, thats exactly what I'm looking for man, so I'll look into those plugins, thanks!

Perna, thanks man, how would I go about doing that? Do you mean duplicate the islands? What about things like the walls & roofs?

trebor777

well you model and unwrap one piece, collapse it, (this keeps the uvs you made in the object)
and you just clone this object
then you can merge the objects together and voil

Dylan Brady

in the case of the walls I would say you dont even have to redo anything, just planar map them both, then overlap one over the other. that way you get the whole thing as one island.

Ace-Angel

3DC and UVLayout aren't plugins, they're separate programs that you need to learn.

Also, +1 to what Perna said, if you're not going to at least spend the time to understand how to optimize and unwrap something with the basic tools you have before running of to DL some fancy scripts, then you're going to have a bad time...say like a studio not wanting to pay extra for said scripts or the next version of Max breaking it.

Also, the models are fairly simply to unwrap, you can duplicate alot of the stuff to same up on call, and if you want, you can slap-dash the unwrap and let a fancy vertex-blend shader do all the work!

Shuriken UK

Yea I'm using 3DS 2011, and just to set the record straight (lol), I'm not actually mad about using, or hunting for plugins, or trying to bodge things as an easy way out, (I dont have ANY plugins except the free Rappatools, which I never use anyway), I'm just trying to learn a way of getting these models unwrapped without having to re-unwrap every small variation of each model. Trying to learn as much as I can about the basics is PRECISELY the path I'm trying to follow. I'm not particularly interested in snazzy, technical shader effects, crazy modifier wizardry or other impressive tricks because I'm modelling for UDK. All I need to focus on are the fundamentals of modelling, and unwrapping. Also I dont have a lot of free time on my hands, so being able to put the time in to learn about and study 3D modelling is often a luxury I cant afford, so to speak.

What Trebor777 and Dylan Brady are talking about sounds interesting. If I understand correctly, what your saying is, for the roof, I need to delete everything but the first row of tiles, unwrap them, collapse, then basically rebuild it with cloning, merge/attach, and then sticth the resulting UV's back together?

And for the walls I should look into using planar mapping? I'll have to do some reading up on that because the only methods I frequently use are Pelt, Unfold, Flatten & Cylindrical.

Cheers