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Nightshade UV Editor (Maya)

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  • Tzur_H
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    Tzur_H polycounter lvl 9
    Hi. Try to use manipulator tab and got this: # Error: TypeError: file C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2015\Python\lib\site-packages\pymel\internal\pmcmds.py line 134: Invalid flag 'position' #

    Ok, problem solved. Just turn off modeling toolkit.

    Thanks! I just received this error as well and your fix helped, my MTK is on by default.

    @Deadly Nightshade, is there any fix for this so the script will work with MTK on?
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    Im getting a bug with the new version where nightshade uv messes with my UI. Mostly my Attribute editor layout. it adds a empty row in the bottom with empty buttons. Sometimes it will even mess with my viewport too added a empty section on the bottom.

    this is in maya 2013
  • nooby
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    nooby polycounter lvl 10
    Hi guys, does anybody know if theres is a way to pack only selected uvs without scaling uv shells(changing texel) inside NSUV ???

    disabling rotation also would be a nice feature
  • mettigel
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    mettigel polycounter lvl 6
    Hi i'm getting this Error:

    Error: line 1: RuntimeError: file D:\Maya\Maya2014\Python\lib\site-packages\pymel\internal\pmcmds.py line 134: Could not load or find icon "NS_absRelToggle.bmp". #

    Version is Maya 2014.
  • SideEffect
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    SideEffect polycounter lvl 19
    I just switched from Max to Maya.

    With that being said...
    I love you.
  • gloriousczar
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    gloriousczar polycounter lvl 6
    Hey Martin, thanks for making this. I have a couple feature requests. for the UV snapshot, instead of opening the save window and having to deal with all that shit, could you just make the UV snapshot copy to the clipboard, or automatically save to a temp location and have it just open in photoshop like UV deluxe does? And is it possible to have a scale option that locks to scaling of a shell to either the U or V grid lines? I want to scale a rectangular shell that so it would just snap to the 0-1 space in the U direction without strectching in the V direction. I hope that makes sense.
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    nooby wrote: »
    Hi guys, does anybody know if theres is a way to pack only selected uvs without scaling uv shells(changing texel) inside NSUV ???

    disabling rotation also would be a nice feature

    This is not possible afaik without writing your own layout -command using Maya API. You can turn off the rotation though by right-clicking the layout icon and set rotate to "None".
    mettigel wrote: »
    Hi i'm getting this Error:

    Error: line 1: RuntimeError: file D:\Maya\Maya2014\Python\lib\site-packages\pymel\internal\pmcmds.py line 134: Could not load or find icon "NS_absRelToggle.bmp". #

    Version is Maya 2014.

    You are missing an icon. You probably forgot to copy the icons folder when updating to the latest version of NSUV. Happens to everyone :)
    SideEffect wrote: »
    I just switched from Max to Maya.

    With that being said...
    I love you.

    I guess that means you like my creation? ^^
    If you for some reason need/want to go back to Max, check out
    http://www.polytools3d.com/polyunwrapper/

    ...It's not free but appears to be pretty damn good.
    Hey Martin, thanks for making this. I have a couple feature requests. for the UV snapshot, instead of opening the save window and having to deal with all that shit, could you just make the UV snapshot copy to the clipboard, or automatically save to a temp location and have it just open in photoshop like UV deluxe does? And is it possible to have a scale option that locks to scaling of a shell to either the U or V grid lines? I want to scale a rectangular shell that so it would just snap to the 0-1 space in the U direction without strectching in the V direction. I hope that makes sense.
    You are welcome!
    You can actually do a quick UV snapshot with your previous settings by right-clicking the UV snapshot icon. Combine that with the auto-update documents feature in Photoshop and your workflow will be smooth! I could always add a feature to open up Photoshop afterwards - like a checkbox option or something... Ill consider it!

    The last thing you describe is called "normalize". In NSUV you can normalize a shell both the normal way (ie, it scales to the bounds of the
    normal 0->1 range), but you can also normalize along one axis only. Check "Normalize along U/V only" under the Align/Snap frame on the sidebar. :)
  • gloriousczar
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    gloriousczar polycounter lvl 6
    Oh sweet, the normalize feature is pretty cool, I didn't realize that there was a right click option on some buttons.

    Actually, for the UVs, the best possible thing would be to just copy the UV snapshot to the clipboard, so I could just paste it into my document without having to worry about opening or leaving my UV snapshot document open in photoshop, because that would suck. Is it possible to add a copy to clipboard option?
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    Oh sweet, the normalize feature is pretty cool, I didn't realize that there was a right click option on some buttons.

    Actually, for the UVs, the best possible thing would be to just copy the UV snapshot to the clipboard, so I could just paste it into my document without having to worry about opening or leaving my UV snapshot document open in photoshop, because that would suck. Is it possible to add a copy to clipboard option?
    I´m not entirely sure but I´ll look into it! It does sound handy!
  • gloriousczar
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    gloriousczar polycounter lvl 6
    Hey would it be possible to add a tool that functions exactly like the transform tool in photoshop?
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Yes please, the free-form transform manipulator from 3ds Max is the best.
  • oxygencube
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    oxygencube polycounter lvl 8
    The Maya default tools are lacking and decided to search around for a Maya plugin. This combined with RoadKill have me all set. Thanks for much for creating and releasing this tool!
  • Thall
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    Thall polycounter lvl 5
    # Error: line 1: AttributeError: file Z:\Tools\Python\pymel\mayahook\mayautils.py line 7: 'module' object has no attribute 'util' #

    Any ideas guys?

    Using Maya 2013 32-bit
  • peteed1985
    Will nightshade get a 2016 version/update? Or would it work with no changes in the new version?
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    A larger update which will add full compatibility with 2016 is in the works.
    oxygencube wrote: »
    The Maya default tools are lacking and decided to search around for a Maya plugin. This combined with RoadKill have me all set. Thanks for much for creating and releasing this tool!

    Never seen that one before.
    Could you restart Maya, then go into the script editor > history, and check the top checkboxes. Then run NSUV again and post the error here.
  • throttlekitty
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    throttlekitty ngon master
    Maybe it was the mountain of buttons, but I always looked this one over and boy do I feel dumb. Great work on this, Nightshade, thanks for sharing it!

    Where did you hide your marking menus? I'd like to make a few tweaks.
  • CreativeSheep
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    CreativeSheep polycounter lvl 8
    I can run NSUV for a while without problem; then abruptly when I try to run NSUV I get this error;
    # Error: AttributeError: file <path where script resides>\pythonscripts\NSUV\__init__.py line 447: 'module' object has no attribute 'UI' #
  • Noth
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    Noth polycounter lvl 15
    maya 2016 support?
  • Bee-Bee
    Martin,
    Thanks so much for making such useful tools for Maya and releasing them for free. I just donated for both the UV editor and blockout to show my support after relying on them for many 3d assets. I realize how much of a pain it can be to script for Maya because of all of the weird variables Maya allows ( ie selecting verts while in object mode - wtf ) along with the bugs it ships with. Most importantly, your tools are super huge time savers and little details like well designed icons and improved marking menus are just icing on the cake.

    ps have been using your nightshade UV and blockout for Maya 2015 mostly
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Hey Martin, will there be an update for 2016. Part of NightShade interface will show up on the left side, but the buttons in the top of the interface are not there, sew shells, randomize uv's, snap uv's to closest point, straighten uv's, all that nice stuff.
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    malcolm wrote: »
    Hey Martin, will there be an update for 2016. Part of NightShade interface will show up on the left side, but the buttons in the top of the interface are not there, sew shells, randomize uv's, snap uv's to closest point, straighten uv's, all that nice stuff.

    Hello Malcolm.
    Sorry for the late reply. I haven't been visiting the Polycount forums for quite some time.

    Good news though! Yesterday I submitted Nigthshade UV Editor 2.0 to Creative Crash. I'm only waiting for their approval now and then I'll do the official announcements here and on social media. Expect a lot of changes! (and yes, full Maya 2016 support ofc!)
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Sweet can't wait.
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Awesome, Nightshade really helps doing uv's at work(UV Layout at home) :)
    Looking forward to see what's in store for version 2.
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    Alright. NSUV 2.0 has finally been approved at Creative Crash.
    All important details are in the original post on page one.
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Does the older versions still have the CC license?
  • Deadly Nightshade
  • Lucas Annunziata
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    Lucas Annunziata polycounter lvl 14
    Awesome! Thanks for the update! All of your tools have been super helpful for me an have saved me many hours.
  • The Lone Penguin
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    The Lone Penguin polycounter lvl 9
    This is great! I'm running into a problem though was wondering if anyone had the solution. When hitting the "Unfold the selected UVs along U/V only" button either nothing happens or I'm getting this down in the command response bar:

    # Warning: History will be on for the command since a selected item has history.

    But the "Unfold the selected UVs" button seems to work just fine.
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    wrong thread sorry... :poly127:
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    This is great! I'm running into a problem though was wondering if anyone had the solution. When hitting the "Unfold the selected UVs along U/V only" button either nothing happens or I'm getting this down in the command response bar:

    # Warning: History will be on for the command since a selected item has history.

    But the "Unfold the selected UVs" button seems to work just fine.
    Yes this is a known issue. A hotfix will be uploaded later today which corrects this issue, and a few other minor ones.
  • The Lone Penguin
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    The Lone Penguin polycounter lvl 9
    Oh awesome, thanks for the update! Going great so far otherwise.
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    Hotfix has been applied.
    New version: v2.0.1
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Thanks for the update. I have a problem tho, when I click the Flip UV's, Rotate, etc. I get thw following error:
    # Error: TypeError: file C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2014\Python\lib\site-packages\pymel\internal\pmcmds.py line 134: Invalid flag 'position'

    Old versions of Nightshade work fine tho.

    Some people say you can turn off the modeling toolkit and get this to work, but I use the modeling toolkit, a lot.

    EDIT:
    Nevermind, I opened some of the bug reports you have on CreativeCrash, and it seems it's a Autodesk/Maya problem. Seems it's fixed in 2016 since the Modeling Toolkit was implemented fully, but updating is not a possibility for me at the moment, which is a shame.

    You should probably update your read-me file stating that people using the Modeling Toolkit on older versions of Maya won't be able to use Nightshade properly.

    Thank you.
  • RodolfoRubens
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    RodolfoRubens polycounter lvl 9
    I can't live without this anymore. Thanks!
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    I can't live without this anymore. Thanks!
    Thank you! :)

    New hotfix has been uploaded. New version: 2.0.9.

  • seb3d
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    seb3d polycounter lvl 11
    getting this error: # Error: UnboundLocalError: file C:/Users/XXXX/Documents/maya/2016/scripts\NSUV\core.py line 1855: local variable 'results' referenced before assignment.  when starting nsuv.

    seems to happen only with 2.0.9. reverting back to 2.0.8 and the error is gone.
    edit: forgot to say this is 2016 ext.1 sp5
  • parodyband
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    parodyband polycounter lvl 9
  • Deadly Nightshade
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    Deadly Nightshade polycounter lvl 10
    Hello.
    I'm aware of this problem and will fix it as soon as I can. For now revert to 2.0.8. Thanks.
  • Treidge
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    Treidge polycounter lvl 11
    Hello guys,

    First of all, I would like to thank Martin (DEADLY NIGHTSHADE) for his incredible work on Nightshade UV Editor. It really makes UV Mapping in Maya a lot more convenient.

    In past month I was lurking around and had a thought: the only thing I really miss in regard to NSUV is the ability to set up some hotkeys for its functions. This comes from seeing how people work in Headus UVLayout — a pretty praised UV Mapping/Unwrapping software that relies heavily on hotkey usage. I thought that it would be wonderful and very workflow-friendly to have hotkeys for some frequently used NSUV functions like Straighten the Selected Edge Loop, Straighten the Selected UVs, Stitch Together, Orient Shells, Orient to Selected Edge, and a few more.

    But there was a problem: all of mentioned functions are exclusive to NSUV. As NSUV is implemented through Python, to my knowledge there is no artist-friendly and straightforward way to assign hotkeys to such functions, unless it's accounted in the script itself. Unfortunately, NSUV doesn't (yet) support hotkeys, so one can't just go to Hotkey Editor and make some for himself (well, not really, as I've figured). You still can create hotkeys for some standard Maya functions like Rotate UVs and likes, but without mentioned above NSUV-exclusive functions it's not quite as effective as I see it.

    Also I had another idea. Now that in Maya 2016 we have a preselection highlight inside the UV Editor too, we can creatively use it to some special workflow benefits. For example, in the past I've seen a MEL script somewhere that used preselection highlight to execute some Maya action based on preselection, without actually hitting LMB and making a "true" selection. Can we use it like this inside the UV Editor too?

    Well, it happens that we can and I'm very excited about it.

    Basically, we can get the selection required for a particular UV editing function from a preselection highlight by executing a simple script. Combined with the ability to set up hotkeys, it can be very beneficial from a workflow perspective. It means that we can perform an action/execute a function by just hovering our mouse coursor over the component or UV shell, without actually making explicit selection. If required, selection can be automatically converted to appropriate type (i.e. if only one UV is highlighted, but we want to perform an action on a whole UV shell, we can expand selection to the UV Shell and start from that, thus making it pretty flexible). 

    Some examples of possible usage scenarios:

    1) Hover over an edge and press Hotkey to Orient UV Shell to Edge (by edge, vertically or horizontally). The principle illustrated in the image below can be applied to almost any UV editing function:

    2) Hover mouse coursor over a UV shell (or any of its components). Press and hold Hotkey to activate "quick rotation" mode. Rotate the UV shell as needed, then release the Hotkey. Use another Hotkey or combination with Shift to rotate in steps (discreet mode).
    3) Hover over a UV shell (or any of its components). Press Hotkey to Flip the UV Shell in U or V.
    4) Hover over an edge and press Hotkey to Stitch together (with scaling to match edge lengths).
    5) Hover over a UV shell (or any of its components) and press Hotkey to Unfold/Optimize it.
    6) Hover over a UV shell (or any of its components) and press Hotkey to Orient UV Shell (automatically to vertical or horizontal).

    And so on. I can think of at least a dozen of functions, both Maya standard and NSUV-exclusive, that would benefit from using hotkeys and preselection to perform them in a very quick and convenient way — without making an explicit selection and use of UI. Actually, it will allow NSUV to work pretty much like Headus UV Layout, but within Maya and with its benefits.

    Now to the practical part. I've already posted this idea to NSUV's CreativeCrash page, but just today I was actually able to implement it — both in hotkey and preselection aspects. So, I've decided to post it here on Polycount to see if I'm not the only one who sees this feature as a very exciting one.

    If anyone would like to try it on practice, here's the steps:

    1) Create a new Runtime Command in Maya Hotkey Editor and set its language to Python. 

    2) Look up for NSUV function name that will be assigned a hotkey. For example, core.orientEdge() is the call for "Orient Shells to the Selected Edge(s)". 
    3) Enter the runtime command text that will call for this NSUV function. Pay extra attention to formatting — there should be no extra spaces and code indentions like below are required, otherwise the command will not work:

    from NSUV import core;
    import maya.cmds as cmds
    preselection = cmds.ls( preSelectHilite=True )
    if preselection == [] or preselection == None: 
    core.orientEdge() 
    else: 
    cmds.select( preselection ) 
    core.orientEdge()

    *Note that this command is just an example and it can be made smarter than that.

    4) Save the Runtime Command and assign a hotkey to it. 
    5) Try it. Now when you hover your mouse coursor over preselection highlighted edge inside the NSUV, assigned hotkey can be used to execute Orient Shells to the Selected Edge(s) without actually making a selection. Default procedure (with explicit selection) still can be used, but preselected edges take priority.

    Any thoughts on this will be much appreciated. What functions would you like to use like that? Do you see it beneficial to your workflow? There's a bunch of small nuances that probably can be discussed in this regard if anyone would be interested.

  • Treidge
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    Treidge polycounter lvl 11
    Doubleposted by mistake.
  • aten2000
    Loving the tools so far! But I'm getting the same bug...

    'core.py line 1855: local variable 'results' referenced before assignment # '

    Can you post a link to the previous version (2.0.8)? As this is making Maya behave a bit flaky at the moment.

    cheers!
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Hey Martin, so I'm still in Maya 2015, long story. Any ways, I got the latest version of NS from creative crash and when I launch it I get this error.

    # Error: line 1: UnboundLocalError: file C:/Users/malco/Documents/maya/2015-x64/prefs/scripts\NSUV\core.py line 1855: local variable 'results' referenced before assignment

    Besides that the right click menus don't work like toggle border edges and simple stuff like that.

    And a feature request, could you please take the new bottom tool bar and move it back to the top, it's really messing with my mind. I have 15 years of muscle memory built up to use those icons at the top of the screen, my brain just won't let me click them down at the bottom of the interface.
  • Treidge
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    Treidge polycounter lvl 11
    MALCOLM, this is a bug in latest version. Until it's fixed you can revert to 2.0.8. Just in case if you don't have the files, here's the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jlnq3pxeeqlb3ul/Nightshade_UV_Editor_v2.0.8.zip?dl=0

    Also, could you kindly take a look at my previous post in this thread? It's on previous page, and I'm looking for some feedback on some ideas stated there. I believe you may find them interesting as a user of NSUV.
  • malcolm
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    malcolm polycount sponsor
    Thanks it's working now! Hotkeyable actions sounds like a great suggestion.
  • CreativeSheep
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    CreativeSheep polycounter lvl 8
  • 19ulrich90
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    19ulrich90 polycounter lvl 8
    I've been using Nightshade for few days, really helpful script! But just yesterday "Move the selected UVs" manipulators stopped working for some reason. Anybody knows what the problem might be?
  • Treidge
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    Treidge polycounter lvl 11
    Never happend to me, but you can try to reset NSUV settings and variables. Close down the NSUV window, then open up the script editor (Python tab) and execute this: 

    NSUV.core.resetOptVars()
  • 19ulrich90
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    19ulrich90 polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks @Treidge ! It's working again.
  • CreativeSheep
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    CreativeSheep polycounter lvl 8
    Anyone have a problem whereas you can run NSUV when Maya starts but when you close the window for NSUV you can't run it again ?
  • Mark Dygert
    I just installed this script and as a former Max user, I LOVE this script.

    @CREATIVESHEEP, have you created a custom shelf button that triggers the python command "import NSUV"? That works for me.
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