LODs and UVWmaps

Shady-D

I always wondered how to make LODs withouth influencing the uvwmap.. Each time you delete a polygon and weld the vertices the uvwmap doesnt follow it leaving a open gap in the uvwmap and a seam on the mesh.. Just wondering is there anyway to do this withouth having to manually edit the uvw after your done?

Rick Stirling

If youa re using max, and Editpoly, you can delete edge loops and rings and leave UVs intact.

If you check the 'Preserve UVs' tickbox, then you can move and target weld verts.

CheapAlert

On Blender you can just collapse edges manually. The UV maps are preserved as much as possible.

MoP

MultiRes in Max usually does a pretty good job of preserving UV's, except on seams... but you're not likely to notice since it'll be LODding out at medium/long range anyway.

Ryno

In Max, the functions that you will want to use are Remove and Collapse. Remove (Ctrl + Backspace) is usually used in conjunction with a loop selection. Collapse can work with vertices, and does quite well with Ring selections.

Jarrod1937

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MultiRes in Max usually does a pretty good job of preserving UV's, except on seams... but you're not likely to notice since it'll be LODding out at medium/long range anyway.

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i assume you would only do this for non-deformable meshes and reserve collapsing for deformable meshes like charactesr? i would think multi-res would completly ruin a well laidout character mesh, although i have yet to try.

MoP

Nope, Multires actually works very well on deforming characters, if you pose them in a position where their limbs are all bent to their maximum ranges - that way Multires preserves the detail around joints much better than if you just ran in on the default neutral, inactive pose.

Emil Mujanovic

I can't remember exactly, but I think using the EditMesh modifier lets you delete verts and edges quite freely without ruining the UV layout (except around seams).

-caseyjones

Jarrod1937

[ QUOTE ]
Nope, Multires actually works very well on deforming characters, if you pose them in a position where their limbs are all bent to their maximum ranges - that way Multires preserves the detail around joints much better than if you just ran in on the default neutral, inactive pose.

[/ QUOTE ]
interesting, i didn't know that, i'll definently keep this in mind in the future.

Shady-D

Thanks guys!