UV MAPPING. A headache?

MujtabaYousuf

Hi guys!
Currently... i was trying to learn uv mapping in3ds max. Seriously I cant get any of it from the youtube tutorials.
I want to knwo how do i start learning this stuff. I hate uv mapping but it is essential for game art. 
Has anyone of you suffered from this headache?
THANKS IN ADVANCE!

kanga

Ive done uv unwrapping in Max, Maya, Modo, Cinema, Headus and Blender, depending on what I was working with or what the client wanted. Every bit of software has its quirks (bits that are not in the manual). Those are things you have to get through. It also depends on how much actual uv work you have done in the past. If I am trying to uv in unfamiliar software I am aware that even after checking there may be faults in the mesh I made. How much experience dp you have with Max?

MujtabaYousuf

kanga said:

Ive done uv unwrapping in Max, Maya, Modo, Cinema, Headus and Blender, depending on what I was working with or what the client wanted. Every bit of software has its quirks (bits that are not in the manual). Those are things you have to get through. It also depends on how much actual uv work you have done in the past. If I am trying to uv in unfamiliar software I am aware that even after checking there may be faults in the mesh I made. How much experience dp you have with Max?

i was just starting 3ds max . So far i have mad a bullet. A chess piece. A computer monitor and stuff like that. 

kanga

Ah so ok. Have you tried the F1 hotkey reference while Max is opened?

DavidCruz

^ What they said and pelt mapping is pretty damn helpful and useful for me anyway i go straight into that an do a "relax with custom settings 1000 - 100" let it sort its self out and check whats going on in the view port, sometimes i just use the plain old checkerboard pattern, sometimes i use the customs ones provided in the wiki ? if i am not mistaken.
(Here are some tricks just for the hell of it, for problematic parts that say spin around crazy and never sort out, cut those down even more into more group / islands and then reattach them and sort them out again, works every time for me.)

I hate unwrapping especially when it takes long, I tried out ipackthat and though it did take long and i did it faster and more efficient at the time and was using the demo (and it was somewhat just starting out) so that could have been why but i still recommend it for sorting out the islands, the more things that can be automated the better.

I wish i had time (which i do, somewhat) to learn how to unwrap in other applications but i mean, how many times am i really going to need other applications, ya know.

Gj Kang shoot make some tutorials, i might give them a go. I hear good things about blender.

Kyetja

I think that UV maps are a huge hurdle for those who just started, heck even a lot of my mates still hate it.
For me the more I did it the less I started hating it, after some point you'll know how to do it fast and easy.

AtticusMars

DavidCruz said:

I hear good things about blender.

You heard wrong imo. Blender doesn't even have a proper relax function for UVs. It has some useful unwrapping tools, especially if you like unwrapping things in straight lines, but it could be a lot better.

MujtabaYousuf

kanga said:

Ah so ok. Have you tried the F1 hotkey reference while Max is opened?

Thanks i will take a look at that. 

dustinbrown said:

Ok first, know that you're in good company. Many people don't enjoy setting up UVs. That's in large part because it feels like a fiddly technical impediment keeping the artist from making creative forward progress, which in fact it is. Unfortunately it's also 100% necessary. The best advice I can give is to not hop around between software, trying to find UV tools that are "easier" to use. I suspect a lot of people make that mistake. While you're busy testing software, you're not getting art done. Stick with one program (it sounds like you're using Max, that's fine) and learn it very well. Get fast and efficient at using it. Read the help docs on the UV tools as many times as you need to, and really familiarize yourself with every single tool. Getting fast at UVs really comes down to how well you know the tools, so that every time you need to do X, you immediately know what tool(s) to reach for rather than spending precious time trying to figure out how to accomplish X.

Once you feel confident and efficient doing UVs in Max, try some third party programs like Headus, Unwrap3D, IPackThat, etc. Thoroughly learning the UV tools in Max first will give you a baseline and context by which to judge these other UV tools.

Thanks man .

hentsteph

I like to use xrayunwrap in 3ds max. it's a plug in that make unwrapping easy.