UVW Unwrapping in 3DS Max (Total Newb)

Quantum Dot

I'm making models for a video game as my final project in a class, and we're using the Quake 3 engine. I'm trying to accurately UVW Unwrap the model for making textures, but I can't really find any completely user-friendly tutorials... they all end up integrating elements that I don't need, or aren't explained.


Additionally, as you can see in my image below, Max isn't recognizing about half the triangles as being part of a whole. I'm tried removing duplicate faces, welding vertices, everything I can think of.



Triangles: 964

Thanks in advance!

Jesse Moody

looks like you gotta start stitching that thing together.

It's like a big sewing project. Find seam a that matches seam b and stitch... Repeat until you have a nice big unwrapped character

cholden

Edit MESH?! Switch to Edit Poly. Your model there isn't very good. I'd be more worried about it looking good and how it's not going to deform properly when animated before UVs, but since that's not the question...

Try this, may not be the best way, but it will yield fast results:
select all your faces in UV editor, mapping > flatten mapping (you can play with settings but default is fine), then right click and stitch everything together where you don't want seams. Align everything nicely like you're playing tetris and be done with it.

Quantum Dot

Yeah, I know it's not the best model in the world; it's only the second one I've ever made, and as for the proportions and such, I was working directly off concept art that is how my partner wants it to look.

I'm using flatten mapping, and I'm attempting to stitch everything together, but those floating triangles are still not stitching because Max recognizes them as open edges. Is there any way to fix that?

sprunghunt

For characters I'd be looking into using pelt. There's a tutorial that is in the help documents that's pretty good.

t4paN

Oh, boy, you're gonna love stitching this character together... You'll love it so much, you'll always be getting butterflies in your stomach every time you'll have to unwrap something from now on.

The advice I can give you is, first see what fits where. eg, when you select in the editor polys vertices or edges, their neighbouring polys edges etc will show in blue edges on the connecting borders). the greenoutlines should always be on the outside, as they're the seams.

After you select, let's say a leg in the viewport, all it's uv faces will be selected in the editor. You don't have to have them packed from now, so move them out of the box and work on welding each vertex separately etc. Don't use stitch and relax for a while, till you get the hang and realize how uvs affect the model.

Also, go from "view" in the editor and uncheck "show grid" and uncheck the material display button in the uv editor so things are cleaner in terms of visibility for now.

Here's also autodesk's fairly easy pelt mapping tutorial, but I'd suggest doing things oldskewl till you get the basics down.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=5903856

/edit: consider just using a planar map (aling the front view) on this guy, and after you have the front and back polys, separate them into arms legs and head and weld those parts separately. It's good practice I guess.

konstruct

"I'm attempting to stitch everything together, but those floating triangles are still not stitching because Max recognizes them as open edges. Is there any way to fix that?"

The uvw unwrap recognizes your model as is. A piece wont stitch to another piece, unless (on the model) they are connected. you might want to actually cross reference your model while Uving to see if you have any weird stuff going on like doubled up faces etc- My tip to
you would be to forget about unwrapping for now. Drop a "STL check" modifier on it and if you have any open holes, on your model, it will show you where. Once the STL check is reporting no errors, THEN stitch wont give you any problems.