UV Workflow / Max 8

Uly

Hey Max peeps, I was curious as to what programs, plug-ins, (I checked out the Max Plugins post, pretty neat.) and when you do your UV Maps.

I've been trying to get the hang of Max lately for work related issues. The transition has been pretty good so far, and with Chugnut's UV Tools, the UV Mapping isn't so bad, but it ain't so hot either. UV Unfolding seems to be kinda...Well, impossible even with the updated toolset. It can do everything else Maya can do, but you have to jump through some extra hoops to get it working as such.

In order to maximize the efficiency of your workflow, what external programs or 'other' plug-ins do you guys use to make UV Mapping fast and clean?

I appreciates any and all responses!

MoP

I have Shift-R set to open the Relax dialog, and I always use Relax by Face Angles instead of by Edge Angles, with Iterations of 100 and Amount of 1.0 - works perfectly for nearly every possible outcome I've come across.

Basically I just slap an Unwrap UVW modifier on top of my object, select any bunch of faces I want to be a single shell, hit "Planar" in the modify panel, select Best Align, then go and just Relax that section. Do the same until the whole thing is unwrapped, occasionally using Chuggnut's tools to align things along the U or V axis (I have keys bound to these actions), and occasionally using the Space U or Space V functions.

Alternately you could map your object so that it's just one big chunk, then go into the viewport and just select all the edges you want to be seams, then go back into the Edit UVWs window and hit CTRL-B (break selected), then select all and relax like before, that way everything should be neatly unwrapped and all in consistent scale. Then you can just lay stuff out (Freeform Mode is good for doing this quickly).

Personally, I don't use any plugins other than Chuggnut's tools, they do everything I need.

Then I can just turn on Preserve UVs if I wanna mess around with geometry after it's been unwrapped, this has saved me so much time at work recently it's unbelievable.

Mark Dygert

Pelt Mapping came with Max8 and I love it. I'll say it again in case you are hard of reading, PELT MAPPING. Google it, look it up in the help/tutorials Docs that come with Max (F1).

Once you get the simple work flow down it saves hours of time. Being able to draw your seams down edges instead of cleaning up seams by detaching faces and welding them again after a messy cylinder unwrap is great.

Here are a few tutorials about it:
http://aniquito.com/forums/index.php?topic=41.0
Download the .rar and read the pdf it covers the old and new method.

http://www.vigville.com/PeltMappingTutorial.doc
My own I made for our 2D artists so they could help the 3D guys unwrap. It works great to have the 2D guys unwrap they understand the UV template mess so much better when they make it themselves.

http://www.3dtutorials.sk/index.php?id=113&page=6
Very basic tutorial about pelt mapping. It's part of a larger tutorial about unwrapping.

Uly

Thanks very much guys, both of your tips have been extremely helpful. And don't worry, I'm a thorough reader. : P I'll play around with both methods some more, and post some more comments later. E-Cookies.

Ryno

I don't use any plugins, just but do have a little custom toolbar with scripts for quick UV alignment. For organic stuff, Pelt mapping and Relax are your friend. Since I also do lots of environmental work, just the simple UV Planar and Cylindrical, as well as Flatten and Normal Box mapping usually get the job done.

CopperHaze

I agree, ChugNut's Tools are a big upgrade to the default Max UV editor. Makes the UV'n task a hell of alot easier.

solar

If you don't want to use Chuggnuts tools, try Fat Assasins' scripts. The most useful ones for me have been horizontal and vertical align, bind them to a short cut key and you'll have straight edges instantly.

gavku

I pretty much work the same as MOP, with a bit of pelt mapping thrown in....only plugin/script I use is the one Low Odour wrote for seam elimination...
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php...true#Post175645