3DS Max 8&9 - UV editor glitch-unselectable verts

greenj2

Hey guys, this is a minor problem but it can be very irritating at times. As far as I can remember I've only encountered it since Autodesk incorporated pelt mapping into the UVW Unwrap modifier.

The problem occurs sometimes after selecting a part of a mesh and using the planar mapping tool on it. Everything appears normal except I can't reselect that part of the mesh in verts in the unwrap window. Polys and edges are fine but not verts. Collapsing the modifier stack and adding a new unwrap modifier doesn't help. I find the only way to fix it is to reselect the problem chunk in polys and use planar mapping on it again.

Not a huge problem, I would just be interested if anyone else has encountered the same problem and has any more info on it. Thanks.

Eric Chadwick

W is probably a crazy-high number. Select all verts, change the W spinner to 0, should solve it.

greenj2

Champion, thanks dude, very much appreciated.

Ghostscape

I can't tell if what you're talking about is related to the "unfold" bug that occurs where the bottom left (0,0) vert disappears/gets stuck, but my work around to that problem has always been to rightclick and copy the uvs, then immediately paste.

MoP

Yeah, I get that sometimes when using the "Best Fit" button in conjunction with Planar Map, it just throws some of the verts way off into W space for no good reason. Kind of annoying (although worth noting that you can still select it in Face mode). I usually just end up re-mapping the face on X, Y or Z and that fixes it.

greenj2

Thanks for the input guys, EricChadwick's suggestion did the trick. The problem for me involved some simple shaped geometry with a lot of subdivs in it. Which seems to make 3DSMax's relax UV tool useless. So if I remapped some of those chunks I'd lose a lot of time unwrapping them manually from planar. That reset W to 0 worked a treat though, until now I've never even used those sliders.

Noren

Since the original question has been answered, may I add two more perhaps?

Since Max's relax can get quite slow with higher polycounts, did anyone try and compare to that roadkill live-pelting uv-tool pimped recently in General Discussions ? It seams to be literally "live", so I would be interested if it still is realtime or at least faster than Max with high-resolution meshes on a standard rig. (I know I should simply test myself and eventually I will, but it would be nice to have some quick input from someone who already fiddled around with it. )

Secondly, sometimes unwrap uv in Max8 starts to act really strange. It seams like every movement of the mouse is doubled or accelerated the longer you drag. So if you want to move an uv-chunk or scale it,it will be flying way out your 0-1 region or scales up hugely or is reduced to a tiny spot. Restarting Max usually fixes that but perhaps someone knows an easier workaround or how to avoid it alltogether.

gavku

Eagle, you have a shit memory.......get back into your egg.

Eric Chadwick

Noren, I've been way too busy to play with Roadkill, but am interested to try it out.

The W map coordinate is used for a 3rd axis of mapping space (usually depth), which in Max at this point is only used by 3d procedural maps (Noise, Cellular, etc.). I wish I could use volume textures in Max, but there's no interface for it.

When you use a map projection, Max creates the all three UVW values, not just UV. If you use a Cylindrical projection, 0 W is at the center of the gizmo, .5 W is the gizmo outer surface , and 1 W is one more radius distance outside the gizmo. The further you move the gizmo from your faces, the bigger the W will get. Planar too. Hope that makes sense.