3ds Max 2011, Pelt mapping makes a huge UV island

m1neh

Hey Guys,

Title says it all really, I am manually placing my seams using edge selection to seams, and then pelt mapping. However, when pelt mapping, the UV island is huge, I can't even see the edges, and it zooms out to the max amount in the editor. I tried scaling down (for about 10 mins) to no avail. Any reason this might be happening, some silly shortcut I've hit?

Cheers!

Mark Dygert

I gave up using pelt mapping.

I apply a planar map, use point to point edge selection in the viewport, break and relax. The peel tools added in 2011-2012? Also work pretty well at replacing pelt.

Pelt mapping just seems to have too many steps and too many hoops to jump through when you can do pretty much the same thing without all of the stretcher BS and wonky floating menus.

m1neh

Hey Mark, I hear ya, but I'm pretty comfortable with pelting, if only this bug would bugger off (see what I did there). Have used peeling on a 2012 ver, but am currently on 2011, so don't have access to that tool.

On a side note, planar mapping is also giving me mahoosive results

GeeDave

The only thing that springs to mind is that your object is actually massive, and you've got "Normalize Map" disabled. This will create a 1:1 scale of your UV's, which is ideal in most scenarios because otherwise it skews your UV islands to fit inside the unwrap border.

One suggestion is to scale your model down, or just check Normalize Map in the unwrap options and then make sure you Relax the uv shells afterwards to retain their shape. If you need all islands to have the same scale relative to each other I'm pretty sure Max has this option in by default now, somewhere in the unwrap window itself.

Edit
enabled/disabled switcheroo.

m1neh

Will give this a go, my object isn't massive at all - its largest edge is about 200 generic units (UU), smaller than many other models I've unwrapped. I will give this normalize map option a go - cheers!

GeeDave

Has it been scaled down by a sub-object selection? Maybe try resetting the xforms in the utilities panel first.

m1neh

Normalize on or off doesn't seem to do anything at all!! Good idea with the reset xforms, but no dice!

Here is a screenie, I'm doing that very basic column upwards, and as you can see in the unwrap, that dotted line at the top shows that it is off screen. When I get up face selection, the entirety of the UV editor fills with the crosshatched red to show a face selected...

m1neh

Not sure what you mean by scaling by sub-object either. Thanks for your help GeeDave!

GeeDave

Weird, and you say regular mapping types give the same result?

Is there a state where things aren't wrong? ie, when you first apply an unwrap modifier and open the window, can you see your objects UVs? (albeit, not mapped properly)

What happens if you apply a UVW Modifier first, set it to box, and then add an unwrap to have a look?

Do you get the same problem if you create a new object?

You could try exporting it as an .obj or something, make sure to uncheck any sort of mapping in the export window. Shut down max, re-launch and import it.

As for the scaling by sub-object, I meant that if your object was massive, and you scaled it down by verts/faces/edge selection. Max might still think it was huge. Sort of like how if an object is at 0,0,0, with its pivot also at 0,0,0 and you move it by a sub-object, the pivot won't move.

Oh that's a point, where is your objects pivot? I wonder if perhaps it was miles away you might get some weird issues. I don't know though... I'm swinging in the dark here.

m1neh

Yeah, when I first add the Unwrap UVW modifier, I can see them within the bounds, albiet not mapped.

Adding a box Map and the Unwrap UVW has the same effect.

It wasn't scaled in sub-object, used keyboard entry to get the exact size I wanted, as it is being placed in UDK in an exact space.

Pivot is centred to object atm, so no probs there.

It is indeed happening to newly created objects, am gonna try exporting as OBJ and re-importing with a fresh file - will let you know how I get on.

m1neh

Well, I've somehow managed to unwrap. The mesh I was using had already been exported as an obj, so I went back to the original file and unwrapped there. This seemed like it was just some way i exported, but when it came to the last section to pelt, the same thing happened. As my mesh is symmetric, I was able to copy the counterpart over and weld things together easily as I work on the grid. Though I still don't know what happened. If this continues, may try a reinstall *sigh*.

However it is unwrapped so I can continue work for the time being.

Many thanks GeeDave!!