unwrapping tubes, cables, pipes etc.

motives

was wondering how some of you guys go about unwrapping objects like tubes, cables etc that are bent and/or crooked. Im currently unwrappin the nuke tractor i posted about in the wip thread http://81.26.246.68/nuketract2.jpg
and it got a fair amount of cables, basically a cylinder with the segments shifted to get the "cable" shape. Is there any good way of doing this instead of having to manually shape the uvs to somthin i can work with?

Im thinking maybe i should first make a straight cable, unwrap it and then push the verts around to get the shape i want?
anyways, input appreciated (and hope u understand the question.. my english sometimes... )

MoP

Yeah, what I usually do is UV-map the cylinder when it's straight, putting the seam where it won't be noticed. Then I just move/rotate edge loops until it's the shape I want.

If you're working in Max, in Editable Poly, you can Connect edge rings to add more segments if necessary, and the UV's will adjust accordingly, which is very cool. You might have to change the length of some sections in the UV editor afterwards to match the changes you've made to the geometry, but it's a hell of a lot faster than trying to map an odd shape, and leaves a perfectly straight, flat map for painting on.

Eric Chadwick

Yeah, modeling straight, UVing, then distorting the mesh is a good way to go. Or you could use a loft-like tool that auto-creates the UVs for the tube, distorting them along with the bend. Or if you're using Max you could use a spline-mapper like Texture Layers.

motives

tnxs for the fast replies guys

i'll go with the straight cylinder approach for this one then, however the splinemapper tools look handy. Will see if i can find somethin thats not $299 tho

Rick Stirling

Or if you want to do it after the fact, simply create a new cylinder with the same segments, unwrap, then snap the verts of this object to the original.

Or perhaps, apply an edit poly to the bent tube, snap it to a cylinder, unwrap, then remove the edit modifier - it should pop back into shape. Maybe.

motives

rick the snap to verts trick works wonders.. tnxs man, nice tip

rooster

what if you create a spline, check 'display render mesh' and 'generate mapping coordinates' fiddle with the side number and interpolation, then convert to mesh?

PaK

create pipes using spines and rendering out th sides. This way it maps itself.

http://www.easel3d.net/forums/polycount/pipes.max

-R

AstroZombie

I always loft these types of objects with "create mapping" ticked. Eliminates the hassles of unwrapping it all together.

Delaney King

If you use apply mapping on a renderable spline, you can use uv xform to make it tile automatically without having to put a uvwunwrap ontop.