uv 's melting/smoothing in zbrush?

Ruz

this is an issue I am running in to now and again in that I have a
particular uv layout in max then after the model comes back from zbrush the uv's have been relaxed slighty. I don't want this happening at all.
i think it might be happening when doing test normal maps in zbrush. there is a button re the normal map generation where it says 'smooth uvs'
could there be any other reason for this
if it works so that the uv's are smoothed every time you generate a test NM , that would be a pain in the ass

Ruz

seems as though that's the way it works ie when you subdivide the mesh, uv's get smoothed also. what a pain
ie even if you uncheck smooth uv's it still smooths them

cryrid

Have you looked into the ReUV button, or tried reimporting the original UVs?

Ruz

yeah I can do that but I just didn't pay attention to that and lost my original uv layout
will check out the re uv button also, cheers cryid

its really more of a general workflow thing, if I am iterating on head models and making small updates, I bake a quick normal map in zbrush, so need the correct uv's in place

thomasp

you probably toggled the 'Suv' (smooth UV's) button in the tool->geometry tab. that one caught me good. not sure i clicked it by accident at some point or if it toggles when using specific functions. one thing to keep an eye out for in any case.

Ruz

yup, must have had that on for ages. I just could n't figure out why the results in max were different from zbrush, but then the uv's were always marginally different:/

also there is a smooth uv's option when baking normal maps, so that must do the same thing every time you bake a map