Calculating wasted space?

Valandar

I was looking at the old Quake 2 model reviews, and it occurred to me that when they refer to wasted space on a skin... how do they calculate it? I'd like to improve my mapping, and being able to determine how much wasted space I have would help me out a bit.

Eric Chadwick

Monster had a MAXScript for this awhile back, but I don't see it on his site, so I uploaded the script here. I also barely recall someone using Photoshop to calculate unused pixels... ?

Ghostscape

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I also barely recall someone using Photoshop to calculate unused pixels... ?

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I haven't used the script. When I grab a UVmap from the UV editor I'll do one that's the lines and one that fills with solid white+white lines. You can use the photoshop average filter on the resulting file and the resulting value of the image is the amount of used space.

MoP

Or you can use the Histogram function if you've filled the UV areas white and left the surrounding areas black, I believe it displays a percentage in there. I never really saw the point though, you can usually tell at a glance if it's a wasteful UV-map or not.

Ghostscape

you're right about being able to tell, but it's nice to be able to quantify it. There have been a few instances where I've messed around with two wildly different unwraps and it's been helpful to see which one is going to give me more detail than the other.

Valandar

Precisely, Ghostscape!

Psyk0

If i remember correctly Deep UV calculates wasted space too.

Slum

It would be nice to have a script that calculated a dexel density ratio.. It would tell you how much of your UV layout is not scaled properly to the rest. Basically, a numbered version of eyeballing with a checker map. Not 100% necessary, but good for r&d stuff.

Eric Chadwick

Take a look at Juan's script, the math should be adaptable to maya if that's what you're using.