Collapsing UVs with modular pieces
Hello everyone!
Today I'm having some technical problems with preserving UVs while making modular meshes. I have a finished modular stair piece made in 3DS Max, 8 steps, 128 high, and 256 wide, with correct UVs and lightmap UVs. I'd like to use it to create several variants that you can build alongside it - a curved inner and outer piece, and a 512 wide piece. Here's what I'm talking about:
The selected piece on the left is my finished piece. The two pieces to the right are trivial to model out of this piece using Bend modifiers, or Attach/Weld. However, what I'm not so sure about is how to preserve the existing UVs when making these changes! Ideally I'd like to just make minor edits to the UVs rather than doing them from scratch for each variation. That way I can ensure that the textures line up neatly across transitions between pieces, and the lighting is uniform.
The problem is that, in order to make the curved pieces, I need to make edits to existing geometry - which means I must place modifiers *above* my Unwrap UVWs on the modifier stack. That means I can't go back and re-tweak the UVs, because the modifiers above them are now dependent on them.
Now, I have tried the process of using "Collapse To" on the UVW modifiers, making the necessary adjustments (adding edges/bending/etc.), and then re-adding the UVW modifiers to tweak them. However, this doesn't work. When I create new UVW Modifiers on the curved stairs after collapsing, I find that it has only preserved the UVs from channel 2 - meaning, only the lightmap UVs. As soon as the UVW Modifier is created, it defaults to UV channel 2 rather than 1, and I can't retrieve my diffuse UVs by switching to channel 1.
What's the best way to go about this? It seems likely that there's an efficient workflow for building variant meshes without having to re-do the UVs from scratch each time - but how do you preserve both UV channels?
Today I'm having some technical problems with preserving UVs while making modular meshes. I have a finished modular stair piece made in 3DS Max, 8 steps, 128 high, and 256 wide, with correct UVs and lightmap UVs. I'd like to use it to create several variants that you can build alongside it - a curved inner and outer piece, and a 512 wide piece. Here's what I'm talking about:
The selected piece on the left is my finished piece. The two pieces to the right are trivial to model out of this piece using Bend modifiers, or Attach/Weld. However, what I'm not so sure about is how to preserve the existing UVs when making these changes! Ideally I'd like to just make minor edits to the UVs rather than doing them from scratch for each variation. That way I can ensure that the textures line up neatly across transitions between pieces, and the lighting is uniform.
The problem is that, in order to make the curved pieces, I need to make edits to existing geometry - which means I must place modifiers *above* my Unwrap UVWs on the modifier stack. That means I can't go back and re-tweak the UVs, because the modifiers above them are now dependent on them.
Now, I have tried the process of using "Collapse To" on the UVW modifiers, making the necessary adjustments (adding edges/bending/etc.), and then re-adding the UVW modifiers to tweak them. However, this doesn't work. When I create new UVW Modifiers on the curved stairs after collapsing, I find that it has only preserved the UVs from channel 2 - meaning, only the lightmap UVs. As soon as the UVW Modifier is created, it defaults to UV channel 2 rather than 1, and I can't retrieve my diffuse UVs by switching to channel 1.
What's the best way to go about this? It seems likely that there's an efficient workflow for building variant meshes without having to re-do the UVs from scratch each time - but how do you preserve both UV channels?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qoC5pdgTLM