How could i unwrap this?

buddikaman

Im new to unwrapping and was looking for advice on how i could unwrap this in 3dsmax. Not the basics but general theory on were to cut the seams and to use cylindrical or planar, ect in 3DSMAX 9. I tried using UVLayout but it seems more suited to organix meshes. Thanks!





-Buddikaman-

Sage

Well I would mirror everything that has the same shape. What that means is you unwrap the item once and all it's clones get the unwrap. How to learn where to put seams? I learned by breaking models up into pieces, of course when I started doing this it was 1999 and there was no flatten uvs in Maxs unwrap modifier. I think you should pick some square chunks of your model and run it. It will break it up. Go under edge mode and then use stitch. Try to make the uv chunks join together in ways that they are easy to paint. Then look at how the uv islands look once you stitched them together and try to visualize where you have to put seams on a model so it unwraps like that. That's how I learned. I used a script called chilliskiner back when modding for quake 3 was in demand.

You put planar maps on the object so selections of faces of the object produce an uv island that is as flat as possible. The goal is to produce an easy template to paint on.

Here is a link to Ego Lounge since it shows a bunch of tutorials for max. When I look at tutorials is look at them for inspiration, since they usually set off a light bulb in my brain for something that I'm just missing but it's right in from of my eyes. So take them with a grain of slat. Do a search on unwraping. Go to the uv layout site and look at how he puts seams on the models try that on boxes and wedges and you should figure out how to put seams on complex objects.

What I would do.

Make a copy of your model name it placement. Hide this in a layer.

Name the copy of model that you did not hide and call it unwrap. You can put this on a new layer if you want. Look at it and determine everything that's the same shape. Keep one of everything. Keep in mind that everything you delete has to be positioned again. so if you delete a gear that is exactly the same as a small one you'll have to rescale it and position it. I sometimes do it, depends on my mood. By the way I always cut the model in half. Saves time. If you go to my site I cut my plane for example in half by doing a ring select, did a connect so there was a perfect loop in the middle. Deleted half of it. I sometime do this with parts of the object too. Like say I though the wing was to much of a pain to unwrap as a whole I would cut in half, unwrap, clone it back, weld the wedges. Edit the uvs so the they were not mirrored. Collapse the stack then go to the edge loop I created and remove it. Not that I have done for a wing yet.

Look at your model and see what parts of your model fit into cylinders, squares, etc. Then apply mapping that suits your needs. Sometimes I'll just use flatten. the problem with flatten is it leaves a ton of little parts, but if you are patient and work on small portions of your model at a time it's not bad, and goes fairly quick at times.

http://lounge.ego-farms.com/showthread.php?t=66

Pretty nice tutorial on unwrapping a mechanical object.

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=38

Alex

Joshua Stubbles

I find the stitch and relax tools in the unwrap window to be extremely helpful. There's also an insanely good tool that mr Chadwick showed me once called UVPaint. The downside with that though, is that it requires you to unweld all UVs and make it an editable mesh

buddikaman

thanks for the tips!

-Buddikaman-

Loren Broach

Vassago, what is this UVPaint thing you speak of? I'm very curious.

Joshua Stubbles

This is UVPaint.

Their video doesn't explain a thing. I'll make one tonight. It's a limited plugin, but it's useful.

romi

another useful tool for unwrapping mechanical objects like this is Crazy Butcher's LSCM unwrap tool. a tool i use pretty much daily.

http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmax

cheers,
Rom
snowblindstudios.com

romi

i'm intrested to see how UVpaint works. thanks Joshua in advance!

cheers,
Rom
snowblindstudios.com

Joshua Stubbles

MOVIE
It's crap quality, so I'll explain the steps:


1) Convert object to editable mesh
2) Unweld all UVs
3) Make your initial map (in this case, planar)
4) Choose UVPaint script and click-drag on the mesh (from the part that was already UVmapped. It will continue the UV to the new face. Sometimes an error will pop up the very first time you use it in a scene. Just click okay and try it again, and it will work.

PROS: Super fast, easy

CONS: Requires editable mesh, viewport can never aim "UP" - you always have to have the grid visible as the tool uses that to calculate some data, have to unweld all UVs

romi

thanks for making the movie!

boy, this tool is cool but suffers from the things you've mentioned.

- i wish i can use it while having the UVunwrap window up so i can see what i'm doing.

- currently you have to go thru hoops to make it work. though when you start using it, its very nice.

SO can some maxscript-savvy folks here in the forums take this script and have it support editpoly and having the UVunwrap window up side by side so you see what you're doing? that would be much, much appreciated.

cheers,
Rom
snowblindstudios.com

Joshua Stubbles

Yeah it's got some bad limitations for sure
Certainly useful though - I use it all the time.

I'm going to start learning maxscript soon, so I'll be looking it over as well.
Though I'm sure someone here know already knows the scripting can take a peak?

Mark Dygert

It's encrypted (.mse) so you would have to pester the author for the source code. I hate it when people do that...

Baddcog

I'd also look at things like those bolts on the bottom.

delete all but one, UV map it and then clone it around the model, much easier than UV mapping all of them.

Mark Dygert

A quick way to copy/clone one bolt to all the others is to detach all the bolts as separate objects, select them all go to the hierarchy tab, click Affect Pivot Only, click Center To Object. Then right click your UV'ed bolt and clone it, hit shift-A to switch to quick align mode, now click a bolt and the clone will snap to the position of the old one, wash rinse repeat until all the bolts are replaced, delete the old bolts and you're good to go.

Or detach all the bolts as separate objects, unwrap one, save out the UV's, and load that onto the other bolts.