Max: 1:2 Textures and correcting UVW

oXYnary

What is the solution to get max to correctly proportion uvws in edit uvws? It internally even if the texture is 1:2 with bitmap size set to reflect a rectangular area still places the planar maps as though the texture area was "square"/1:1.



In short, it will stretch the uvw layout across. Which then if you use to texture with will mean the uv's are not proportional. I have never been able to figure this out.

Also, if you have more than one uvw mapping coordinates on a object and some are 1:1 while others are 1:2. How do you switch between each map "layer" to have it reflect this?

poopinmymouth

When I'm using a 1:2 area texture, I just lay everything out normally, but use only the left half of the UV square. Then when everything is layed out correctly in that half, I use the UV scale in Chuggnuts to scale in the V direction to 2.0. This works perfectly every time. Even if you get it to planar map correctly with the UV window showing a 1:2 texture, rotation becomes wierd. I find it's just easier to work on a 1:1 space but have everything double width at the last second.

MoP

Poop just described the way I do it, too. Just use half of the UV square at standard 1:1 size, then scale up the UV's to fit when that's done. Works like a charm.

Eric Chadwick

James Haywood posted this on the Autodesk board awhile back:

"If you don't want it to distort while you're rotating you can change the Render Width and Render Height numbers in the Options window. The actual numbers don't matter as much as the ratio. For example, if you have a 1024x512 texture map, change the Render Height to 128 (the Width defualts to 256). So you'll have a Render Width and Height of 256x128, which is the same ratio as the 1024x512 texture map."

MoP

Eric: That leads to mind-boggling silliness when rotating UV chunks though. It hurts my brain to see things stretching as I rotate them ... I think it's easier on the eye and mind if you just mentally limit yourself to 5 gridlines in height or width.

Eric Chadwick

I dunno, never tried it. We only use squares here. But I squirrelled away the post anyhow, just in case.

oXYnary

Erick, what you describe is what the above shows what happens. (Unless Im misunderstanding you). It still treats the poly as being on a "square" area, and stretches them as shown.

Thanks Poop and MoP. Yea, stretching was my final option. Still... seems rather. No. IT IS primitive for such a 3D program in its 7th reincarnation. Its the type of sillyness I would expect from trueSpace.

Eric Chadwick

Hmmm, how do Maya/XSI/LW/etc. handle this? I haven't been exposed to these enough to know if they have a nice way to do this. I'm not defending Max here, just curious if there's a better way.

The way I understand it, UV coords for a bitmap are from 0 to 1, no matter what aspect ratio you're using. So the editor display is being squashed to match the bitmap, but the editing is still done in the unsquashed 0-1 space.