Straight UV grid or straight Checkerboard?
polycounter lvl 3
I've been curious about this for a while, because I see a lot of really "pretty" UV grids online, with tons and tons of seams...I'm working on game models usually, so I try and keep the seam count nice and low. Because of this, I get some interesting shapes every now and then. The Relax tool in 3DS Max helps me get the UVs to have really nice grids on the mesh with a checker texture as seen below, but if you look at the UV Editor, the UVs are sorta gross mess.
I can use the "Straighten Selection" button however to get pieces of it all straightened out into nice boxes and rectangles.
As you can see in the viewport though, this introduces distortion into the checker map. So when it comes to UV unwrapping, which method should you go with? The straightened "perfect" looking UVs in the UV Editor, or the messy ones in the editor that remove UV distortion on the mesh? In the past, I've leaned towards the second option, with a nice checkerboard, but somebody recently introduced me to the method of having fancy rectangular UVs. So far, I haven't been able to tell a significant difference...
I can use the "Straighten Selection" button however to get pieces of it all straightened out into nice boxes and rectangles.
As you can see in the viewport though, this introduces distortion into the checker map. So when it comes to UV unwrapping, which method should you go with? The straightened "perfect" looking UVs in the UV Editor, or the messy ones in the editor that remove UV distortion on the mesh? In the past, I've leaned towards the second option, with a nice checkerboard, but somebody recently introduced me to the method of having fancy rectangular UVs. So far, I haven't been able to tell a significant difference...
Replies
A bit of distortion is worth the trade off for having the preferable straighter uv's.