I'm after a very specific UV editor

Antidamage

Hey guys. I'm currently using C4D to edit a set of UVs. The controls are awful though, dragging vertices and faces around is impossible, the mouse drifts wildly all over the place when I drag. I'm surprised it's still so unusable after all these years.

I'm after an experience more like illustrator. I need to nudge pixel-by-pixel until two different models line up next to each other. Any advice?

RobeOmega

Blender has a snap to pixels option in the UV editor and if you press grab (G) while you have a UV island/islands selected you can use the arrow keys to move the UV island/islands around.

However I personally use the software IPackThat for fast UV packing that you can set to have custom clusters, UV margins and more at a much greater speed than you could achieve packing by yourself with a higher quality. Although saying that it is still important to know how to pack UV's yourself before you develop a reliance of the tool.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/363020/

Antidamage

dustinbrown said:

Here's my honest advice.  Rather than having a preconceived idea of how you think a tool *should* work, and being annoyed that nothing meets those expectations, try keeping an open mind and learn to use the available tools effectively, how they are meant to be used. For example, I don't personally know of a UV editor that lets you use the arrow keys to nudge UV points around like Illustrator, but most of them do have alignment and snap tools that will serve the purpose.

That's kind of condescending. You also didn't add anything to the conversation and you sound like you didn't read the post and don't have experience with the issue.

Robeomega said:

Blender has a snap to pixels option in the UV editor and if you press grab (G) while you have a UV island/islands selected you can use the arrow keys to move the UV island/islands around.

However I personally use the software IPackThat for fast UV packing that you can set to have custom clusters, UV margins and more at a much greater speed than you could achieve packing by yourself with a higher quality. Although saying that it is still important to know how to pack UV's yourself before you develop a reliance of the tool.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/363020/

Thanks, I'll check it out! It's a shame it doesn't have a proper demo though. I'll give Blender a go again as well as it's been a while since I did anything in it other than a bit of straight up modelling.

Shrike

Check your snapping settings, that should be the issue
Mouse drifting wild over the canvas is something ive never seen with the UV editor, maybe you a have huge snapping size turned on or so.
With the snapping you can also perfectly align vertices etc

skankerzero

Antidamage said:

dustinbrown said:

Here's my honest advice.  Rather than having a preconceived idea of how you think a tool *should* work, and being annoyed that nothing meets those expectations, try keeping an open mind and learn to use the available tools effectively, how they are meant to be used. For example, I don't personally know of a UV editor that lets you use the arrow keys to nudge UV points around like Illustrator, but most of them do have alignment and snap tools that will serve the purpose.

That's kind of condescending. You also didn't add anything to the conversation and you sound like you didn't read the post and don't have experience with the issue.

Dustin added to the conversation with his thoughts. He even mentioned that he's not aware of any software that does what you want it to do. Also, I assure you he has more than enough experience with the issue to comment.
I echo what he said, I've never run across a piece of unwrapping software that does what you want. The most they will have is pixel snapping.
Are you using multiple monitors? I've run across instances where I have to make sure the monitor I'm using my 3d package (Max) is on my primary monitor or the mouse will act up and do similar things to what you site. Also I've had issues with 4k displays that push my mouse cursor off to the left. So I have to overcompensate and click buttons and geometry with my cursor floating off to the left slightly.

iPackthat doesn't do what you want to either, so save your money.

If I run across something with those features, I'll let you know.

huffer

I think you could easily make a script that does what you want and bind it to the move keys (move whole shell on U or V by 0.01 or something). In Maya at least, it's very easy to do, it might be easy to do in C4D too.

Tvidotto

I second Dustin on this, it is better to adapt yourself to the program then forcing the workflows of another one.

I never tried blender, but if it is just the UV the problem, you could export, open the uv on another program and reimport it, I do it all the time and I change the program to UV quite often depending on my needs. Right now I use more 3dcoat or maya for UVs

Ipackthat is more related to making the layout by bruteforcing different setups, it is really good  if you have a good amount of pieces, but if you have just a few islands it doesn't work as well as the traditional way in my experience. I usually set it to pack my uvs and do at the same time on maya or 3dcoat, Sometimes it gives you a really good idea of arrangement but most of the time I keep the traditional version (since my models at Dota are from 300 to 3k polygons only and with just a few islands)

flat-D

When you say Pixel what do you mean exactly?
Pixel - UV Editor/Monitor Space or Texture Resolution Space.
Seems like you're trying yo match UVs, have you tried transfering UVz from one mesh to the other and using it as a starting point?
You can move stuff in blender easy (by texture resolution pixel)
Make Selection, and use these hotkeys:
G > X or Y (for axis constraint) > Type the number of pixels to move > Enter
Shift R to Repeat Last Action
...
So with the first move you set your Stepping, then with Shift+R you use it like arrows.
Or you can make a python script to bind to Arrow Keys.