rant on: stupid UVW unwrap
polycounter lvl 18
first: here's a video of me unwrapping a box on 6 seconds. the remaining 6 seconds is trying to remove all the stupid crap the max programmers put in to drain my soul and spirit.
http://www.dejawolf.com/12secUV.avi
this is fine, albeit marginally annoying useless and a pain in the ass "feature" of max8+
i used to have unfold as a macro button, reducing the time to unfold map an element from 6 to 1-2 seconds, but it broke with max 8 scripting.
but then there's the extremely annoying pain-in-the ass unwrapping of chamfered object:
http://www.dejawolf.com/stupidchamferunwrap.jpg
i'll have to spend a fucking minute cleaning this shit up, when with a tad better algorithm it'd take me 6 seconds, or even 1-2 seconds if the damn scripting could work.
the algorithm should consist of simply: stitch longest edges of unattached objects first.
its not like this idiot algorithm works on concave meshes anyways.
http://www.dejawolf.com/12secUV.avi
this is fine, albeit marginally annoying useless and a pain in the ass "feature" of max8+
i used to have unfold as a macro button, reducing the time to unfold map an element from 6 to 1-2 seconds, but it broke with max 8 scripting.
but then there's the extremely annoying pain-in-the ass unwrapping of chamfered object:
http://www.dejawolf.com/stupidchamferunwrap.jpg
i'll have to spend a fucking minute cleaning this shit up, when with a tad better algorithm it'd take me 6 seconds, or even 1-2 seconds if the damn scripting could work.
the algorithm should consist of simply: stitch longest edges of unattached objects first.
its not like this idiot algorithm works on concave meshes anyways.
Replies
i took the time.
here's what i got after 3 minutes of fighting the peltmap+relax tools:
http://www.dejawolf.com/rantkillerhardly.jpg
and this is what i got after 1 minute of fighting the unfold map.
http://www.dejawolf.com/unfoldedin1minute.jpg
Or
You didn't quite get the method, totally understandable I didn't cover it very clearly. Who said anything about pelt mapping?
Here's what you do:
- Switch to edge mode, select the edges you want to be opened (I do this on the model in the viewport).
- Break the edges, (ctrl-b or Tools > Break). Relax (Tools > Relax... I have relax bound to r) and you're done.
You might have to rotate it, for that I turn on pixel snap. It will be close enough to straighten any edges that might not be perfectly straight.
If it doesn't relax quite right, you might want to planar map it first.
Or
Break all edges, or apply a box map, relax, and stitch the edges you want joined. I think you're making this harder then it really needs to be.
yes, you didn't say anything about breaking edges. i also have relax added to a shortcut key. "E" because i have unfold mapping mapped to "R".
anyways, this is no faster, and more complicated than unfold, detach/stitch, and not as accurate either. so.. fairly useless.
i tried it on a pink chamferbox, and got mongshape blues:
http://www.dejawolf.com/mongshapeblues.jpg
with unfold detach/stitch i remove all warping automatically, since there is none to begin with, and i only use 3 tools.
but thats not really my point. my point is, if this thing chose to stich the largest edges automatically, you'd get a very good base unfolded UVW for hard edges, in less than 6 seconds, compared to 1 minute of work.
if you unfold map 25 chamfered boxes, this equals half an hour of work, compared to 2 minute of work.
as for flatten mapping, i used that before, but its far from as fast and good as unfold mapping. IMO it should be removed.
same goes for the "unfold mapping, walk to farthest face" its retarded and serves nothing but cluttering the UI.
In the time it took you to type your rant, you could have properly unwrapped that simple object. :poly108:
Edit:
By the way, I'd use pelt mapping for more organic things.
Select, ctrl-b, r. Is not complicated and takes about 6-12 seconds.
Seriously check out relax. Use it, it removes warping. If you'd actually give it an honest try it you'd see what I'm talking about. I apologized for not being clear, and took the time to write it up properly, no need be a dick.
I'll leave you to stew in your rant, as you actually don't want help and just wanted to lament about an awful work flow you used ages ago. It seems to be working so well for you now, why not keep using it... oh wait its broken. If you took a little time I bet you could update the script really easily. I'd look into it, but some how I'm not feeling all that charitable at the moment and you never posted the script. I guess I should fallow your lead and go crazy about that?
What Vig says is a much faster way.
TBH, for this object, a simple Box mapping to start would be fine,
then just stitch the edges (which you have on a hotkey, I'd hope).
That way it will be aligned correctly too so you won't have to
rotate anything.
Also, your images are huge, break the formatting and make stuff
hard to read. I recommend sizing them down to 50%, they will be
just as legible and won't break formatting. Or you could just link
to them, since mostly they aren't that useful anyway.
Also, you should probably change the thread topic title to something
like "Rant on: I can't be arsed to change my weird workflow", might
be more suitable.
yes, you finally got it right, i don't need help, and i want to rant about how godawful 3ds max' tools are, and how much easier they could be to use if autode$ks programmers just made things the way i want them to be.
....i'm spoiled.
If you don't like that, then you'll need to make your own. Or life is going to be one big whine after another. You shouldn't be surprised when people don't want to hear it.
I strongly suggest not posting rants in the future then blasting people who try to make your life easier. I don't mind if you bitch just to bitch, but make that clear and don't be a dick when and if people try to help. I'm guessing you won't have to worry about people trying to help you much in the future, since you're about as friendly as a land mine, duct taped to a porcupine wandering the Chernobyl waste land.
Deawolf gets filed under T for tool, in the filing cabinet labeled "idiots to ignore".
i use unfold mapping because it doesn't suck as much as flatten mapping.
as for "a simple box map" its decently fast, about 50 seconds, but its got some stretching.
plus, if i try to fix that stretching without breaking the edges of the side panels with the relax tool it turns into mr squigglypants. and if i start breaking the little triangles along the edges, it turns out slower than the unfold detach/stitch. so i could just as well do it the old way.
as for break/relax.. i don't get it. how did you do that in 12 seconds?
i spent 30 seconds just cutting out the edges, and i still got that squiggly nonsensical UV.
the fastest way i got currently of unwrapping a box is planar UVW map, 512x512>UVW map unfold map middle, stitch, mirror, stitch at 33 seconds. but it only works on objects with 90 degree edges. an unfold map that worked at the longest unfold map edges would be able to do it for irregular shapes as well.
You'd know the piece if facing the wrong way if you applied text to it. It would be wrong reading.
no problem, i'm used to people hating me, and i've been pretty much on my own since i was 6 years old anyways.
/shrug
no its my fault. i'm a completely insensitive psychopath, and dangerously socially inept.
anyways, your wonder-technique wasn't so wonderful.
i got it working, and after 1 minute and 25 seconds, i ended up with this:
mr squiggly pants.
this is proof that my technique is superior, and you should adopt it, eventually improve it with some coding so that it stitches longer edges first, instead of whatever retarded algorithm is currently used.
then you could share it with everyone else, improving everybodys unwrapping speed of mechanical objects by ... urm 6 times or so. then all that is needed is a good packing algorithm, and the world will be rid of 70% of the chores of unwrapping.
As for squiggly, I think the problem lies with the face being inverted. When it goes squiggly that meant you where looking at the back of the poly not the front, its attempting to flip it the right way.
I'm not sure if your version of 3dsmax has it or not but go Select > Select Inverted faces, anything it highlights is going to go squiggly on you. Simply flip them and they'll relax fine. Provided you have the correct relax method assigned.
If you let it run long enough on inverted faces it would probably finish flipping them, but thats a long pointless process that is easily avoided.
this time the break/relax took 46 seconds.
but the automated future of unfold is still bright.
one day, i will make one unwrap tool... one unwrap tool, to rule them all.
Dejawolf how did you ever get unfold to work? It usually gave me weird results even in version 7 similar to what you posted or it would ge get a vert stuck.
Opps Per and Vig posted
With pixel snap on all the edges snap along a straight horiz/vert line. I normally don't need to go in and align verts/edges vert/horiz when its on.
Mind you, pixel snap only works if you have an actual image applied to your object, if you're using the procedural checker pattern it won't have pixels to snap to. Another reason to use a custom checker pattern, preferably one with writing so you can more easily spot the inverted faces.
how do i modify that farce of a checker pattern background image?
i tried looking for settings and such, but couldn't find anything.
yeah, they chewed out 6 hours of my life.
I use a script from Blur Studios called The Onion, its a layer manager and it enables you to assign two textures to the same object and toggle between them with a click or keystroke. Two guesses what my first toggle material is for every object...
MoP also pointed out a way to edit the UV Editor macro, so it displays the texture in the first slot instead of the default checker. But for the life of me I can't find the post and I'm not about to go digging in the macro...
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=52283&highlight=unwrap+checker
and "normalize clusters"?