What to do if an unwrap is wrong after baking…

DustyShinigami

Hi

I have a bit of a minor predicament. I’m currently into texturing my character, and I’ve discovered that a particular piece I’ve finished texturing was actually unwrapped wrong, and the details aren’t appearing in the right place. I’m copying my texture from an actual game model and texture somebody made.
If I want to ensure the details appear in the right area, rather than retexturing the whole piece again, what would be the best thing to do…? I guess I could re-jiggle what I’ve done so it does all appear in the right place, but if I did plan to re-unwrap this one area, after all the baking and texture maps have been done, what would be a good work around? Would I need to re-bake everything again, and then somehow composite the fixed shell into my current baked maps…? Or, is there some kind of wizardry that could be done in Max or Maya using Render to Texture with a new UV set…? And then merge the two together?

Thanks

Kanni3d

is there some kind of wizardry that could be done in Max or Maya using Render to Texture with a new UV set…? And then merge the two together?

precisely this. you can have your busted/undesireable UVs as uv channel 1, and your fixed one as uv channel 2 and transfer it over via render to texture in 3ds max.

DustyShinigami

I thought it might be, however, I’ve been experimenting all night trying to get it to work, but I’ve been unsuccessful. :-/ I’m not sure if it uses a slightly different method than the one I use for fixing texture seams, but replacing an entire UV shell isn’t working. I think it’s only the texture that’s changed, which has given weird results no doubt due to the different unwraps.

Plus, thinking about it, if I do get the UV replaced, the baked maps I already have aren’t going to show correctly either. I’m guessing those would still need rebaking and composited into the current texture maps…?

Kanni3d

Yep, it'd be destructive in a manner that if you do want to go back and rebake, it would have to go through that uv transfer process again - best to fix it at the source to prevent any pipeline issues. If you want me to help you out with the uv transfer thing, feel free to DM me and we can set up a screenshare or something

DustyShinigami

Sorry, I’m not quite sure I follow what you mean in your first sentence. 😅 Are you saying that if I replaced the UV I’d still need to re-bake anyway…? That I should just do that after correcting the UV…?

I’m still very interested in how to transfer the UV though. The more ways I know of how to fix issues the better.

Kanni3d

You mentioned the baked maps will show incorrectly with the new uvs - the uv transfer will solve that by transfering all your baked maps to the new uv lay out. I was just mentioning if you wanted to ever rebake or adjust textures, then you'd always have to transfer textures as an extra step - since substance painter is using your old UVs.