3ds Max Uv´s shell Size question

alter5

Can i keep my uv shells this big somehow or enlarge the black boundary thingy in any way?



Im asking because if i do the following am i not losing a lot of texture quality later on? Thank you in advance!

Eric Chadwick

This is the nature of unique texture UVs.

The preview checker is not indicative of the pixel sizes, unless you're using a 16x16 texture!

If not rendering for game use, you could use a variety of techniques, like procedural texturing, and/or UDIM (http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/multiple_uv_tiles/multiple_uvs_tiles.htm).

But for games, you can optimize the UV space by mirroring, and overlapping uvs.

See
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_Coordinates
and
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_Baking#UV_Coordinates

alter5

The thing is i am already using Mirrored Uv´s and overlapping uv´s and i used the normalize uv´s option in TexTools which gives me this big uv shells in the first place. 

Hope i didnt missunderstand anything but doesnt lowering the uv shell size mean bulkier textures or lower res textures?

doolally66

You can reduce the shells to fit inside the box without losing any texture quality. The frame signifies the area which would be rendered if you do a render to texture/render UV wires. You would choose the size of your texture in your chosen texture software. 
If you plan on doing a render to texture with your chosen UV layout (everything inside the frame), you choose the output size in the render to texture popout. 
The square pattern is to help make sure that all shells are to scale, and shows if any shell has a larger texel density than others.