[3DS Max] How do I straighten out my arm UVs?

AxelNoir

Hello, I'm wondering if someone can help me with this issue I'm having. I've uv mapped a pair of arms for a character I'm working on here, and while it looks alright, I'd like to straighten them out more like the second image to make it easier to paint on for me. However I'm finding this quite difficult to do so inside of 3DS Max. 

Does anyone know how I can achieve the 2nd picture's result?

pxgeek

There are alignment tools in the upper right corner of the uv editor that will let you flatten points to straight lines.

AxelNoir

pxgeek said:

There are alignment tools in the upper right corner of the uv editor that will let you flatten points to straight lines.

Thanks, I am aware of those straightening tools but they don't quite help me achieve what I'm looking for. Well what I mean is, I can straighten the outside borders of the arms/hands but the fingers are too far apart and curved outwards for me to be able to straighten them into place and apart from manually moving each vert by hand I haven't found a better solution to this. It seems Maya might be better for this sort of thing though from what I've seen....

Neox

Not on a pc right now, but this should give you an idea about the hand part

AxelNoir

Neox said:

Not on a pc right now, but this should give you an idea about the hand part

Ahh very ineresting, I think this gives me an idea now of how to do it! So if I understand correctly, I am to weld the fingers together first, then relax them and then straighten out the edges, then unweld the fingers? I hate to be a bother but could you maybe post individual pictures as steps or even a video? The gif is a bit fast to follow haha

Neox

Yeah exactly, i can give you a step by step instruction but not from my phone, might be a bit before i access a pc

Neox

http://www.polyphobia.de/public/advices/uvstraightening.pdf

https://polycount.com/discussion/224845/uv-optimisation

 Ha i knew i had it floating around somewhere, confluence to pdf is a bit shitty tho. 

AxelNoir

Neox said:

http://www.polyphobia.de/public/advices/uvstraightening.pdf

https://polycount.com/discussion/224845/uv-optimisation

 Ha i knew i had it floating around somewhere, confluence to pdf is a bit shitty tho. 

The confluence tools link in the pdf doesn't seem to work, do you mind posting it here? The welding doesn't work on my version of Max, I'm on Max 2022.

Neox

It works, you need to activate it through a script. Still no pc access, tomorrow then

AxelNoir

Neox said:

It works, you need to activate it through a script. Still no pc access, tomorrow then

Ah okay you mean Max script then? Cool no worries, lemme know when you find it

Neox

rename this to mcr, put in your macroscript folder, run once. then you can put it on a hotkey

Anyways, will convert that PDF to a thread so we can conserve it better, good idea @Eric Chadwick ?

AxelNoir

Neox said:

rename this to mcr, put in your macroscript folder, run once. then you can put it on a hotkey

Great thanks! I was able to install it and assign it to a hotkey and put it in my toolbar. However when I'm in my UV editor and I select two or more verts and then run the toggle for the script nothing happens. Am I using this wrong?

Eric Chadwick

Sounds good to me. If you make a nice reply or topic out of it, I can then get that onto the wiki for you.

Neox

AxelNoir said:

Neox said:

rename this to mcr, put in your macroscript folder, run once. then you can put it on a hotkey

Great thanks! I was able to install it and assign it to a hotkey and put it in my toolbar. However when I'm in my UV editor and I select two or more verts and then run the toggle for the script nothing happens. Am I using this wrong?

Toggle it once, now you can weld stuff that isn't supposed to be welded  
But be aware you can mess up your UVs this way

pxgeek

Dang, would've never thought to temporarily weld then unweld.

Using bugs as features is some next level max!

Neox

Is it a bug? It used to be the default until i dunno max 2012 or so when they hid it behind that toggle

AxelNoir

Neox said:

Toggle it once, now you can weld stuff that isn't supposed to be welded  
But be aware you can mess up your UVs this way

Strange, it seems to be technically working but not the way you showed us. This is my before and after of welding the verts when I toggle your script, it's not stitching the verts on the fingers together like it does for you for some reason, not sure why.

Neox

Take another look of what i am doing. It will always weld verts first that are connected in the model and closer to each ither. There is a reason i go down the seam one by one  
If you feel like thats too many points, move them close to each other closer than the actual connected geometry is and play with the weld value. But really this is like what 1-2 minutes of setup max and then it will work Itself out

Note to myself test this with the newer unfold methods

iam717

just a heads up "win11" security risk potential on that .pdf for some reason just the msg i got, trying to review stuff, whether it is or isn't this is micro speaking not me, just posting the info.  i used to do it manually also but then also with the alignment tools, guess it should be the way to go to save space.(this method of boxing the hands.)

AxelNoir

Neox said:

Take another look of what i am doing. It will always weld verts first that are connected in the model and closer to each ither. There is a reason i go down the seam one by one  
If you feel like thats too many points, move them close to each other closer than the actual connected geometry is and play with the weld value. But really this is like what 1-2 minutes of setup max and then it will work Itself out

Note to myself test this with the newer unfold methods

Ahh I think that was the issue then, the verts were too far apart for it to weld. I just moved them closer to each other and it seems to be working! However now I have a new problem, once I've welded the verts and straightened out what I need to, how do I unweld? There doesn't seem to be any option for that.

Neox

Rightclick, break is the option you are looking for. Select the edges and break em, then move the islands apart
And you shouldnt need to move points closer, just raise the weld treshold. If yiu set it to 1 you should be able to weld everything in the 0-1 range into one clump

Neox

iam717 said:

just a heads up "win11" security risk potential on that .pdf for some reason just the msg i got, trying to review stuff, whether it is or isn't this is micro speaking not me, just posting the info.  i used to do it manually also but then also with the alignment tools, guess it should be the way to go to save space.(this method of boxing the hands.)

the reason likely is, that my link is http not https. otherwise just tested, with norton on and windows defender on, works in all browsers i have installed.

AxelNoir

Neox said:

Rightclick, break is the option you are looking for. Select the edges and break em, then move the islands apart
And you shouldnt need to move points closer, just raise the weld treshold. If yiu set it to 1 you should be able to weld everything in the 0-1 range into one clump

Gotcha that makes more sense now, thank you! So I just weld the fingers together, straighten the borders and pin them down, unweld the fingers and then unwrap again right? I'll let you know how it goes!

Neox

converted the PDF to a thread,

https://polycount.com/discussion/235489/uv-straightening-and-its-perks-on-lod-generation/p1?new=1

AxelNoir

Well this is proving to be more difficult than I thought for some reason, I keep getting lousy results despite following all the steps. Mind if I upload my arm mesh and maybe you can try working it out and letting me know how it goes?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1scU_Ai0t_-DxPNUAz-O1Q1afUE3WRnOH/view?usp=sharing

iam717

found the main issue why my situation was an issue, and yes f win11 its not my p.c. but use it when inet.

https://youtu.be/P2ll1SCFA4I?si=Wme_mlhlpGJ6lnXA&t=132

2:12

^shows whats going on behind the scene.

Neox

you're lucky i am not allowed to sleep tonight...

so yeah testing with max 2025 they certainly changed some things.

For once, the Unfold3d method doesnt support it and breaks the mesh, neat.

Better yet, there used to be an option where you just let the relax by polygons run, it could overshoot but usually on a low setting you could just start it and stop it when it looked good. now this option is gone. i need to figure out where it went to and if it can be returned. because now you have to just click the button a bazillion times

it garbels up the fingernails for some reason. so those will need its extra treatment, but this isnt a bad start at all. personally i am not a fan of the thumb in the center but lets work with it anyways

note how it garbles up the shoulder, really nice. i am sure my mighty old max 2011 wouldnt do that

why it garbles up the fingernails is clear now. i would suggest to split them off

oof i didnt unwrap with max 2025 yet. thats definitely gonna be a bit of a struggle. texture display is blurry shit, that new pivot in freeform mode is... shit

cool stuff... grumble... will fix this

anyways. fingernails will need a bit of cleanup. lots of overlaps here and there, even split top and bottom gives weird results

i will ignore these

welp here we go. feels a bit like one arm behind my back but yeah didnt unwrap yet in newer max versions

personally i would move the seam from the back to the bottom on the arm by a few loops which would give a better loop for straightening. the thumb in the middle, not sure if i am a fan or not. works here i guess. some geo wobbles make some things a little harder than needed but nothing too bad overall

https://www.steffenunger.com/transfer.fbx

AxelNoir

Thanks this is much better and more detailed than I was hoping! In picture 3 however how did you manage to, "swing" those set of fingers on the right side though? I don't understand that bit. Do you think you could make a quick video detailing this so I can follow along myself?

Neox

Its always the same. Straighten what you want straight, locally relax the rest to follow that straight edge. You could pin it, or like i do, just exlcude it from your selection 

pxgeek

sheesh, Neox...you deserve all the likes today!