Nightshade UV Editor (Maya)
polycounter lvl 10
Note: If you are using Nightshade UV Editor at work it would be interesting to hear what studio you are working for! 
:: ABOUT ::
Nightshade UV Editor extends the Maya's UV Texture Editor with tools, scripts and a UI that greatly speed up the time it takes doing UV work.
:: VIDEO ::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDOP6d-Fkdw
:: LATEST ::
2016-09-11
Hotfix applied.
-Bug: Delete UVs, Cut UVs, Split UVs, Sew UVs and Move and Sew UVs no longer fail on multi-mesh selections.
-Bug: Legacy Unfold no longer fails on multi-mesh selections.
-Bug: The unfolding speed of Unfold U/V -only has been fixed.
-Bug: Pre-scaling UV's (Unfold UV's) has been fixed.
-Bug: Legacy unfold settings now reset properly when hitting the reset button
-Bug: Fixed a bug with the legacy Unfold UI which caused the Unfold U/V only -setting to fail.
-Bug: UV pinning (selected/unselected) has been fixed for the legacy Optimize UV's (Relax)
-Bug: Fixed a bug which caused the the legacy Optimize UV's (Relax) to behave in a weird way.
-Legacy: The areaWeight -flag of the legacy Unfold UV's has been removed from NSUV as it was causing performance problems that can only be fixed by Autodesk.
-Improvement: NSUV will now autoload the Unfold3D -plugin if it's not activated
-Improvement: NSUV will now autoload the modeling toolkit -plugin if it's not activated (2016 ext2 and 2017)
-UI: Pin UV shell border is now turned off by default for the legacy Optimize UV's (relax) as it caused confusion among users.
:: CHANGELIST ::
:: FEATURE LIST ::
:: LICENSE / TERMS OF USE ::
The free version of Nightshade UV Editor (intended for NON-COMMERCIAL use) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0).
A human-readable format of this license can be found here:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
The legal version of this license is found here:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode
For COMMERCIAL use of Nightshade UV Editor - such as for freelance work or in a studio/production environment - you are required to purchase the pro version available on Creative Crash.
One license = One person
If you want to purchase more than one license, please contact me directly.
:: LINKS ::
NSUV 2.1 Free version. For non-commercial use:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/nightshade-uv-editor
NSUV Pro 2.1. For commercial use:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/nightshade-uv-editor-pro
:: INSTALLATION ::
:: F.A.Q. ::
:: ABOUT ::
Nightshade UV Editor extends the Maya's UV Texture Editor with tools, scripts and a UI that greatly speed up the time it takes doing UV work.
:: VIDEO ::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDOP6d-Fkdw:: LATEST ::
2016-09-11
Hotfix applied.
-Bug: Delete UVs, Cut UVs, Split UVs, Sew UVs and Move and Sew UVs no longer fail on multi-mesh selections.
-Bug: Legacy Unfold no longer fails on multi-mesh selections.
-Bug: The unfolding speed of Unfold U/V -only has been fixed.
-Bug: Pre-scaling UV's (Unfold UV's) has been fixed.
-Bug: Legacy unfold settings now reset properly when hitting the reset button
-Bug: Fixed a bug with the legacy Unfold UI which caused the Unfold U/V only -setting to fail.
-Bug: UV pinning (selected/unselected) has been fixed for the legacy Optimize UV's (Relax)
-Bug: Fixed a bug which caused the the legacy Optimize UV's (Relax) to behave in a weird way.
-Legacy: The areaWeight -flag of the legacy Unfold UV's has been removed from NSUV as it was causing performance problems that can only be fixed by Autodesk.
-Improvement: NSUV will now autoload the Unfold3D -plugin if it's not activated
-Improvement: NSUV will now autoload the modeling toolkit -plugin if it's not activated (2016 ext2 and 2017)
-UI: Pin UV shell border is now turned off by default for the legacy Optimize UV's (relax) as it caused confusion among users.
:: CHANGELIST ::
-New: Multi-Stitch! "Stitch Shells" has been vastly improved and now work on multi-edge selections spanning over multiple shells!
-New: Stitch will now always stitch the smaller shell to the largest when the user use the left mouse button - and vice versa for the right mouse button.
-New: Multi-tile (UDIM) support has been added to Snapshot UV's.
-New: Match UV's has been vastly improved and now has a much better matching -algorithm. It is now approximately 50 times faster than the old Match UV's!
-New: Get TD and Set TD now works on any selection (mesh, edge, face, vert, UV). Additionally, Get TD will calculate and get the average TD of all he faces!
-New: It is now possible to store component and mesh selections in variables. Left/Right -click the A and B icons on the top bar to load/save a selection.
-New: NSUV now displays a welcome screen when being run for the first time (contains a button for creating a NSUV-icon on the active shelf!)
-New: NSUV now displays "Tip of the Day" every time it starts up (it can be turned off). The TotD will inform the user about various neat features in NSUV.
-New: UV Editor Display Settings -window. Gathers all display settings in one place.
-New: It is now possible to individually normalize all shells in a selection. (Normalize UVs options).
-UI: The "Unwrap" frame has been removed and replaced by two new frames: "Cut/Sew" and "Unfold".
-UI: The Align Shells -buttons have been gathered under ONE icon and are now accessable via a right-click menu.
-UI: The Align UV's -buttons have been gathered under ONE icon and are now now accessible via a right-click menu.
-UI: The Pivot Cycling -buttons have been gathered under ONE icon and are now accessible via a right-click menu.
-UI: The Calculate Distance and Angle -buttons have been gathered under ONE icon and are now accessible via a right-click menu.
-UI: Distribute Shells is now gathered under ONE button and has an options window on right-click.
-UI: Layout Shells is now gathered under ONE button and has a custom options window on right-click. Supports the new Unfold3D -stuff from 2016 Extension 2.
-UI: Normalize/Unitize UVs now has a custom options window.
-UI: The Polygons menu has been reworked. Now all menu items go to NSUV functions instead of native ones. Some abundant icons have been removed as well.
-UI: The Image menu has been improved. Renamed "Display" and now contains all display toggles also available on the visibility bar.
-UI: The Selection menu has been revamped and now contains even more selection options.
-UI: Some items on the "View" menu has been moved to the "Display" menu.
-UI: You can now open up the NSUV manual via the NSUV menu.
-Bugfix: NSUV will no longer load the UI module before the optVars module, resulting in "KeyError".
-Bugfix: Copy UV Set now works as it's supposed to.
-Bugfix: Duplicate entires should no longer appear in the UV Set Editor list or the Copy UV set list when multiple meshes are selected.
-Bugfix: When duplicating UV sets, the new name is always based on the current and the name is always incremented properly.
-Bugfix: Clicking a UV set in the UV set list when you have a UV selection no longer clears the selection and deselects the UV set.
-Bugfix: "Snap Shells (A->B)" has been fixed. Previously it would incorrectly act on border UV's only - but now it will act on entire shells as expected.
-Bugfix: Fixed a calculation error when distributing shells towards a target.
-Bugfix: Fixed a bug with the icon group toggles on the visibility bar
-Bugfix: The reset button on the Relax/Optimize UI now works properly.
-Bugfix: When using Select: "Contained Faces" or "Connected Faces" you will no longer get stuck with a multi-component selection. Additionally the selection type will switch over to faces.
-Bugfix: The scale value of Randomize Shells should no longer be cast as an integer by mistake when using a float ending with.
-Bugfix: Clicking reset in the UV snapshot window will no longer prevent the window from popping up.
-Bugfix: The UV Snapshot window will no longer generate files with double extensions.
-Misc: All UV editor features that are new in Maya 2016 extension 2 has been added in NSUV as well (Symmetry and Auto Seams).
-Misc: Automatic mapping and Planar mapping now projects UV's with "keep image ratio" on by default.
-Misc: The Planar Map popup menu is now available on Right Click instead of Left Click. Left click will perform a planar map using the last options used.
-Misc: The Copy UV Set popup menu is now available on Right Click instead of Left Click. Left click will perform a Copy using the last options used.
-Misc: All projection shortcuts on the marking menu now have option boxes.
-Misc: Normal-based mapping will now do a quick unfold and orient shells after projecting the UV's, and no longer convert the selection to the mesh.
-Misc: Flipped the filtered image display option. You are now actually turning on filtered display (smoothing) instead of turning on UNfiltering which is confusing.
-Misc: Improved shelf button. The shelf button script now properly closes down the native UV Editor if it exists.
-Misc: It is now possible to access the move/sculpt UV -tool brush options by right clicking said icons.
-Misc: Distribute Shells now properly gives off an error when trying to use it without a UV selection
-Misc: Randomize shells now randomize translation by default to avoid confusion (users reported it not working with the default settings).
-Misc: The lowest translation value for Randomize Shells has been lowered from 0.01 to 0.001.
-Misc: Set TD and Stack UVs now works on face selections.
-Misc: panel.mel and toolbar.mel has been completely rewritten in PyMEL.
-Misc: All windows in NSUV are now sizeable.
-Misc: NSUV will now check your selection for polygon components before doing isolate select: add or remove.
-Misc: The UV Set icons have been adjusted to be more in line with the native UV Set icons.
-Deprecated: All support for NURBs UVs have been dropped for the sole reason that their implementation in Maya (by Autodesk) has always been exceptionally poor.
-Deprecated: All support for the legacy subdiv -surfaces have been dropped. (Deprecated by Autodesk in 2012 anyways).
-Deprecated: Support for Maya 2012 has officially been dropped. However, NSUV will still launch in 2012 and most features (99.9%) will still work.
:: FEATURE LIST ::
-Advanced UV manipulator: Less typing, more options.
-Orient shells: Orients shells straight.
-Orient edge: Orient UV shell(s) around a UV/edge selection.
-Stack shells: Stack shells on top of each other.
-Match shells: Match UV's to their closest neighbors.
-Straighten shell: Straighten edge loop and unfold shell around it.
-Straighten UV's: Straighten all edge loops in a UV selection.
-Multi-Stitch: Move, sew and scale like in 3D Studio Max (Stitch selected).
-Randomize shells: Randomize shells individually.
-Distribute shells side-by-side with even or no spacing in between
-Align UV's to min, max or average U or V.
-Align shells to min, max or average U or V.
-Snap shells to the UV range bounds (eight directions +center).
-Snap shells A to B: Connects two shells via two UV's.
-Spread shells: Unstangles and unstacks your shells neatly.
-Gather shells: Offset back shells that are outside the 0->1 range.
-Unfold UV's along U/V only with the click of a button.
-Normalize shells: Normalize along U, V, UV or UV with stretch.
-Layout UV's along a U or V -strip.
-Structured and logical user-interface with 4k resolution support.
-Custom Unfold/Relax/Layout/Normalize windows with extended options.
-Powerful new marking menu.
-Extended UV projection tools, such as normal-based mapping.
-New powerful snapshot window with multi-tile/UDIM support, and the ability to easily make 2:1 ratio snapshots.
-Integrated UV Set Editor: Native functionality fully implemented.
-UV Set Order Manager: Manually override the internal UV set order
-Texel density control: Scales shells to the same texel density.
-Fetch texel density from any face selection.
-Rotate, scale, transform and flip shells around custom pivots.
-Relative rotate/scale: Rotate/scale shells around their own pivots.
-Cycle pivot point position around the four corners of the selection bounding box or the UV range bounds.
-Measure the distance between two UV coords: in pixels or units.
-Calculate angle between two UV coords.
-Checkbox for the "Retain component spacing" -option.
-Buttons for saving/loading component selections.
-Buttons for Copy, Paste and Delete UV's.
-Buttons for pinning UV's (Maya 2016 and later only).
-NSUV top menu with a workflow guide as well as tips and tricks.
-Custom UV display window that collects all editor and shell display options in one place.
-Cycle edge colors: Change color on selected edges.
:: LICENSE / TERMS OF USE ::
The free version of Nightshade UV Editor (intended for NON-COMMERCIAL use) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0).
A human-readable format of this license can be found here:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
The legal version of this license is found here:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode
For COMMERCIAL use of Nightshade UV Editor - such as for freelance work or in a studio/production environment - you are required to purchase the pro version available on Creative Crash.
One license = One person
If you want to purchase more than one license, please contact me directly.
:: LINKS ::
NSUV 2.1 Free version. For non-commercial use:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/nightshade-uv-editor
NSUV Pro 2.1. For commercial use:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/nightshade-uv-editor-pro
:: INSTALLATION ::
NOTE that Nightshade UV Editor is only compatible with Autodesk Maya 2013 and later (32/64 bit - Mac and Windows). Support for Maya 2012 and earlier has been discontinued and will not be re-implemented. Older versions of NSUV can be handed out on request though. NSUV for LT is impossible due to it’s lack of Python support.
1) Unzip the files from the zip file to your Maya user script directory. This directory is NOT the same as your installation directory. Path to this directory:
Windows: C:\Users\ %USER \Documents\maya\ %MAYA VERSION \
Mac: /users/ %USER /Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/ %VERSION /
Manually browse to this folder!
Manually browse to this folder!
Make sure you copy everything! (Two folders: prefs and scripts)
2) Start up/Restart Maya and in there write the following in the command line or the script editor in order to load up NSUV: import NSUV
Make sure that you enter the command as Python!
3) A welcome screen pops up. Make sure you PRESS the button to create a shelf icon! The shelf icon is needed for closing/starting NSUV! You cannot make a button from just "import NSUV"!
4) Please note that files from an older installation of NSUV might interfere with the functionality of NSUV 2.0 - so make sure that you delete those files from the Maya user script directory prior to installing.
:: F.A.Q. ::
Q: Will NSUV interfere with other UV Editors that I use?
A: No, it will not! NSUV does not modify any native files! Additionally NSUV comes with a button for quickly switching to the native editor if/when you need it.
NOTE: if your studio is using in-house scripts/tools hacked into the native Maya Editor, then you need to edit some rows in core.py for sourcing a custom script.
More instructions are located in core.py under the function defaultEditor().
Q: How do I flip shells vertically?
A: Right-click the Flip UV's icon. Keep in mind that many icons in NSUV have double functionality like this. Other examples are Unfold Along U/V and Normalize Along U/V.
Q: Does Nightshade UV Editor work for my version of Maya?
A: As of now, v2.0 works for all versions from 2012 to 2015 - for both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows (tested and verified) as well as Macintosh (untested). Maya LT support is impossible because Autodesk does not think Maya LT should have Python interpreter. Older versions of NSUV (running MEL - which work for Maya LT) can be handed out on request. The last version running on MEL was 1.4.1.
Q: How do I use variables for the manipulator and texel density fields?
A: Right-click an icon to WRITE a value and left-click it to READ a stored value.
Q: How do I copy a UV Set with the integrated UV Set Editor?
A: Click and hold the button on the copy icon. A popup menu will appear.
Q: How do I do a planar projection or access the planar projection options?
A: Click and hold the button on the copy icon. A popup menu will appear.
Q: How do I rename a UV set?
A: Double-click it in the UV set list.
Q: NSUV is taking up too much screen space, how can I make it smaller?
A: The window is scalable and the frames and icon groups can all be collapsed (hidden).
Q: Where are the U and V input fields?
A: NSUV only has one general-purpose field. Use it for both U and V manipulations.
Q: Running Straighten shell doesn't work, what's wrong?
A: Make sure that you have a legal selection active, such as no edges shared by two shells. See the manual for details.
Q: Icons are missing! How do I get them back?
A: You forgot to copy the prefs -folder from the NSUV zip file.
Q: How do I reset all settings in NSUV?
Close down the NSUV window, then open up the script editor (Python tab) and execute this:
"NSUV.core.resetOptVars()
NOTE: that the window sizes and positions are not reset. Those settings are stored in a file native to Maya called windowPrefs.mel located in the Maya user script directory under the "prefs" folder!
Q: NSUV crashes during import, what is wrong?
A: You may have a broken Maya installation. Try running the row below and if that crashes Maya as well, you have a broken installation or a pirate copy:
import math
Q: My question isn't answered here, where can I send it?
A: See below.
Replies
Maybe you can still add few things if you want to improve maya functions. Textools for 3DMax from polycounter Renderhjs is still the best stuff for uv edition inside a full package. It can give you some ideas http://www.renderhjs.net/textools/
Here is the selection of tools from textools that i'm missing since i moved to maya ... Those stuffs were make me saving hours !!! I found some script that mimic them for maya but got 10 separated script.
Your script is far way better because of the UI (everything is inside the UV Editor). So if you would add those stuff inside, i'll be smiling and being an happy maya user.
-A "sort" function
Rotates all of the selected shells to a minimum width and lines your selected UV shells up in a row from left to right and also sorts the elements by its height.
If you rightclick
This function is very usefull when packing thin objects that would take a lot of work to pack manually next to each other to save space.
-An "orient function using selected edge"
Aligns the shell of 1 selected edge to the edge's closest axis beeing U or V.
With this tool you can for example align symetrical shells or align a shell that needs to stand on a certain side.
-A "symetry function"
Reflects or flips either 1 side of a UV shell to ther other side or average booth sides so that they are in any case identical. This tool comes with 2 modes:
- select half the faces of a shell to mark the half to be mirrored.
- select 1 edge or a symmetry edge selection to mark the symmetry axis,- will average
-And the most important "A straighten function"Transforms the selected faces in a way so that each face is aligned to the axis as perfect rectangle with 90° angles in each corner.
This method is usefull when you have for example walls that need to be straightend so that the texture better fits pixel wise on the UV. Also usefull when connecting a loop so that pixel
I'll be trying this out! Thanks for the effort.
- Andr
My big inspiration back then was Headus UV layout which is a kick as but sadly very expensive UV software. The problem with headus was however that it would sometimes break the topology or crash on n-gon faced models. So I had to tweak some stuff in Max anyway later on + I wanted a few new things.
Some of my personal favorite tools in TexTools
Symmetry
Because it references the geometry topology as well as as the uv topology to work out a best symmetry match
Align Selection
I do so much stuff with this, its just nice to line up shells for a cleaner layout and matching pixels in the texture space
Checker Map preview
A single press and I get up to 3-4 different checker map previews, right click reverts to the former material.
Rotate 90 degree snaps
Not only does it rotate but it aligns it to the turn edge bounds if that makes sense, its good for quick turn flips without changing much the layout.
Render Wireframe / Map to clipboard
I am a impatient person when it comes to saving temporary files such as wireframe or AO passes that get all into the same PSD in the end anyway. So instead I render them to the clipboard and paste them in Photoshop.
In headus I love the
Thanks for your feedback Cathodeus - I appreciate it and I'm always on the look to improve this tool. There will definetly be more features in the future, and the tool will remain free of charge!
I'll definetly take a look at Textools - seems like a really robust set of tools for Max!
Sort tool: Your idea for a sorting tool sounds very plausible actually. Maya already has a good layout tool for layouting shells along one axis (unfortunatly only U but there's ways around that) so that's definetly something I could work from.
Align edge: Sounds cool and not too hard to make!
Symmetry: So basicly it will cut a shell in half, take one copy and invert it along U or V and then stack it on top of the other shell? Doesn't sound impossible.
Straighten: This is something that is rather hard I believe. I haven't been able to find any other MEL or Python scripts that can do this. But I do have an algoritm for making perfect, straight UV-shells for cylindrical curves using "Unitize" and Maya's unfold tools. I'll look into this.
renderhjs:
Thanks for your feedback. My UV Editor already has some of those features though:
-Align shells
-Push UV's to furthest right/left/top/down UV coord, or average U/V
-90 degree and 180 rotation of shells
...and it looks like that tool is a plugin (and plugin means C++ or similiar programming - and I'm not that good yet
(edit: but nevertheless - it looks like a really awesome plugin. Too bad it costs money)
About the symmetry function : Nope it doesn't work as you understood.
In fact user just tweak an half of the uv than select the half they want to keep than the center axis of the shell is used to replicate every position to the other half of the shell center axis.
The video of textools is better than 100 words.
i saw this on CC and will give it a go.
the texel density control looks interesting.
do yo have a function to calculate the overall percentage of texture space used?
so give the 0-1 uv square you could get see the % of space your uvs take up in that square.
It's located on the top bar next to "calc pixel distance". All you have to do is select a mesh and hit the button.
According to Paypal, the setting for my buttons were set to Sweden/English (country/language). I've changed it to USA/English now and updated the creative crash page.
Version 1.3 is being worked on and will be released sometime this month (or when it's ready) ^^
EDIT: Replied. But I'll give you the answer here as well:
That bug has been fixed in the current beta and will be gone in version 1.3 of the editor.
DOWNLOAD:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/nightshade-uv-editor
New:
-Manual added
-Randomize shell functionality added. Randomizes shells on an individual shell basis!
-Snap shells (9 directions)
-Snap shells A to B (or vice versa)
-Layout U or V -strip
-Copy, Paste and Delete UV's -buttons added
-UV Normalization: Buttons for Normalize UV's, Normalize + Stretch, Normalize U or V only.
-Window size has been fully unlocked and can be made substantially smaller than before
-"Stack UV shells" now selects the whole shell stack after performing operation
-"Spread out shells" now works on any selection type - not just meshes.
-Improved rotate 90/180 - now always rotates around the pivot
-Improved flip - now always flips around the pivot
-Improved marking menu
-All buttons now have labels
-Localization removed: The editor should be in english regardless of what version you have
-UI improvements: Less buttons and more right click -functionality.
-The UI for calculate pixel distance has been vastly improved. Now shows U, V and total distance in px.
-Open/close button groups have been made more visually clear
-Active UV set is now always highlighted in the Integrated UV Set Editor
-Fixed a bug where the Nightshade UV Editor and the native UV set editor couldn't be open at the same time
-The issue with "orient to edge" giving off wrong rotational calculations has been fixed.
-"Tear off faces" now works on a single face selection. Also selects the UV shell after operation.
-The default min and max values for "Match UV's" has been lowered.
-The "keep comp. space" checkbox is now stored as an optionVar (Maya will remember your setting).
-Support for Maya 2010 and earlier has been DISCONTINUED.
More features:
-Straighten UV shell: Straightens a shell along an edge loop or ring, and unfolds everything around it.
-Orient UV shells: Orients UV shells so that their bounding box is as small as possible. Almost always results in straight shells.
-Orient edge: Orient UV shell so that the selection runs horizontally or vertically. Great for custom orientation)
-Stack UV shells: Stack UV shells on top of each other.
-Match UV shells: Match UVs to their closest neighbors. Great to use in conjunction with "stack"
-Center UV shells: Places UV shells in the middle at 0.5u 0.5v
-Spread UV shells: Performs a UV shell layout that does not scale your shells or rotate them in a weird way.
-Rotate 90/180 degrees: Rotate shells CW or CCW 90/180 degrees.
-Tear off faces: Converts a face selection into a UV shell.
-Quick unfold: Buttons for quickly unfolding along U, V or in both directions with optimal unfold settings.
-Quick relax: Button for quickly relaxing a UV shell with optimal relax settings.
-Advanced UV manipulator: For quickly manipulating UV coords without having to type in new field values like a maniac all the time. In fact, you can do it entirely with just the mouse now - and even store manipulation values in variables for later use.
-Calculate UV utilization: Fast Python script by Guido Neumann that calculates how much space your UV shell scover (0->1 U and V).
-Measure pixel distance: Select two UVs and measure the distance in pixels between them. Excellent when you need to pack your shells tightly but want to avoid having to do a million snapshots.
-Powerful aligner: Aligns UV shells to the right, left, button, top or average U/V
-Push/Move UVs to average U or V: Maya has the tools for pushing UVs to the furthest right/left/bottom/top by default but it does not have the tool for pushing them to the average U or V. Now you have that option.
-Measure UV distance: Measure the U or V distance between two UVs.
-Retain component spacing checkbox
-Copy, Paste and Delete UV's -buttons
-Integrated UV Set Editor: All the functionality of the default UV Set Editor is integrated. Also comes witha snapshot button.
-Texel density control: For quickly scaling UV shells so that they have the same texel resolution.
-Cycle edge colors: Change color on selected edges by switching back and forth between Maya's preset colors.
Thanks for noticing this - it will be hotfixed.
Thanks. I've hotfixed the QWERTY issue (luckily I just had to comment out a row to fix it). Download the script again and it should be gone by now.
Regarding the detach faces -bug: could you provide me a screenshot of the selection you have when performing the operation? It could be an issue with my algoritm, or related to the other issue.
I tried one wich was working quite nice ; It was the one delivered with "UVDeluxe" (http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/uvdeluxe). Futhermore, In this one, you have a nice feature wich permit you to set an angle tolerance for the straighten. You certainly already know this tools.
And what about somekind of "Flatten mapping" like the one in 3dsmax ? I've the sensation that it isn't yet in Maya (sorry if it is already =x)
Thanks for what you did !
Yes it's true that the straighten shell -feature isn't fool-proof. It's algorithm is based on the polyStraightenUVBorder -command which itself is a bit flawed.
The flatten edges -feature in UV Deluxe works in other ways (by rotating each individual edge). It's the same approach as UV Ninja afaik - but since I haven't seen the code I can't be sure.
Either way, that feature is planned for a future release. There's still a couple things I want to add to the editor you see, but I'm adding them in an order of priority due to lack of time. For the next version I want to add the following:
-Straighten: Align Edges (UV Deluxe / UV Ninja -style feature)
Extended snapshot functionality (UV Deluxe has this)
Extended TD control functionality (ability to specify working units for example, and store values into optionVars)
Atlas creation -tool
So stay tuned
EDIT: As for flatten mapping in 3DS max - it sounds like a better version of Automatic mapping in Maya but I don't use 3DS Max myself so I wouldnt know.
Nice portfolio btw - I like your textures very much.
Detach faces gives me only two new history entries:
polyMapSewMove1 and polyMapCut1
polyTweakUV1 is added as well when you move the selected shell.
Have you tried deleting all the script files and downloading the zip file again?
That's weird because that button uses exactly the same on/off commands as Maya's native UV Texture Editor - I haven't done any changes there except adding a label/changing the icon.
What version are you on?
EDIT: Appears to be a bug (not caused by me): http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Modeling/Use-image-ratio-doesn-t-work-UV-texture-editor/td-p/4280210
%userprofile%\Documents\maya\2012-x64\scripts just change the 2012-x64 part for your maya version.
find the file "texturePanel.mel" and delete it.
marking menu back to normal
First time it happened:
Second time it happened (on a different computer):
You have a bug in your tear off faces and convert to shell, it often tears off faces that are not selected as well. I've found this is an issue with the Maya command, can you please replace your button code with this instead.
polyMapCut -ch 1;
textureWindow -e -selectInternalFaces polyTexturePlacementPanel1;
polyPerformAction "polyMergeUV -d 0.01" v 0;
Maya 2013.5 after running command "reload(NSUV)" screws up Attribute editor. It makes buttons "select", "load attributes", "copy tabs" really tall and causes half of the attribute editor window space to be unusable. Also in the left hand side bar "copy UV set or part of the UV set to..." when selecting last option to create new UVset and setting new name to this UV set, it doesnt create UVset with set name.
"Create new UVset" button seem to create broken UVsets that you cant rename or do anything with?
I´ll take a look at that!
I had to do lots of copy pasting UVs around from one channel to another, renaming them and making new ones and so on. At some point this have been screwing up attribute editor. Also double clicking UVset to rename it, sometimes causes Maya crash now. Especially if used on new uvset made through your little button. Hope that helps
First issue: Could not reproduce. Tested on Maya 2013 x64
Second issue: This one has now been hotfixed. Thanks for reporting it.
It does sound like your issues with Maya have nothing to do with NSUV. Maya is known for random crashes after all. Either way, download NSUV again and see if anything changes.
Maya 2015 sp2
- orient shells based on edge broken (does not orient shells at all)
EDIT: it works now after some more testing.
- straighten and unfold shell broken (this tool doesn't work if the selection spans over multiple UV shells) warning always show up no matter which edge loop I select.
EDIT: It tried to straighten the selection but instead of selecting the user specified edge, it loops throughout the whole piece which collapse the ends of the uv shell also.
- Layout uvs along U or V (doesn't run at all when pressed) don't have maya 2015 sp2 atm so cannot provide the actual error message.
EDIT: error say it does not work with multiple object selected
Note: Previous version 1.4 worked perfectly.
I love this tool so much and was very excited to install the update, unfortunately these tools are not working for my workstation at work.
I would appreciate if you look into this.
All those issues should now be resolved. Please download NSUV 1.5.1 and try again
I've unzipped the files into C:/Users/****/Documents/maya/2015-x64, then opened maya and typed in the command in the mel script editor, hitting the execute, nothing happens, I'm getting this error:
// Error: reload(NSUV); //
// Error: Line 2.12: Invalid use of Maya object "NSUV". //
Then I've tried to run it in the python script and I get a fatal error and maya crashes.
Fatal Error. Attempting to save in
C:/Users/****/AppData/Local/Temp/****.ma
You need to write it under the Python tab:
import NSUV
reload(NSUV)
This also applies to shelf buttons (make sure you tick the little Python checkbox when creating them).
Maya keeps crashing on me whenever I execute the command you wrote.
In the script editor I can see these lines:
import NSUV
reload(NSUV)
# pymel.core: Updating pymel with pre-load plugins: (lots of plugins names)
file -type mayaAscii;
// ResultL untitled.ma //
And then I get this fatal error:
Fatal Error. Attempting to save in
C:/Users/****/AppData/Local/Temp/****.ma
Am I doing something wrong?
Ok, problem solved. Just turn off modeling toolkit.