What are some good UV Plugins for Max?

alexk

Been acquainting myself with Max's UV tools, but feel the whole UV'ing process is kinda of clunky compared to Maya. Are there any good UV plugins for Max? I'm using Max 2009 and I'm open to exploring either free or paid plugins, thanks.

Mark Dygert

It's a different animal for sure, but I don't think you need much other then what it comes with. I have two custom scripts I use that flatten verts along horiz or vert.

Maybe if you outline your workflow we can make suggestions to speed things up.

Off the top of my head:
- I'd suggest binding stitch and relax to hot keys.

- Select the edges you want to open, break the edges (tools > break) and relax the mesh.

- Or go Mapping > Flatten Mapping > and then stitch some edges.

- Or watch the 3dsmax8 Pelt Mapping video: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=5903856

- Rumor has it CrazyButcher has a nice LSCM unwrap script: http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmax

- I think Roadkill is 3dsmax compatible and or a stand alone version:http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmax


Someone might point you to chuggnuts UV tools, but they are ancient and most of the features have been absorbed into 3dsmax. It also requires you to overwrite core 3dsmax files with older versions... not really a good option.

MoP

What exactly do you miss from Maya?
Personally, coming from Max to Maya, I found a lot of Maya's UV tools quite clunky (although others are good)

You should try out this workflow (ideal for characters & organic meshes anyway):

1. Planar map all polys of the object, just to get rid of any seams.
2. Select edges in the Perspective view, then Break them to create seams. Alternately you can use the point-to-point seam creation in the Pelt mapping options. Or you could just select groups of faces that you want to be individual shells and Break those out of the main group.
3. Hit Relax. You can find good settings in my Standard Relax macro in the scripts linked below.

You'll find my favourite UV mapping scripts and shortcuts in this file:
http://www.greveson.co.uk/scripts/mopTools.ms
(Run it once, and all the tools will be added to a "MoP's Tools" section of the Customize User Interface window - you don't ever need to run it again)


My favourites are Align U and Align V on hotkeys (for rapid aligning of UVs), then Standard Relax I have on SHIFT+R to just quickly unfold a UV shell into a decent shape. You can also relax with borders pinned if you want to keep a specific UV shell shape. These commands work well in the Unwrap UVW right-click quad menu too if you don't like hotkeys.

But yeah, like I say, if there's anything particular you find lacking in the Max UV workflow compared to Maya, I'll try to point you in the right direction. For the most part there are comparable functions, and in some cases there are superior ones.

alexk

Here are some things I find weird and is probably because I'm still learning, but any suggestions is appreciated.

1) I can't seem to stitch multiple edges at a time. Like say I select 2 edges, it will only stitch one of the selected ones but not the other one OR it will sometimes think I want to stich what is between my 2 selections, which is not what I want.

2) When I select an edge in the perspective view, and then switch to the UV window and press stitch, it stitches something totally different and not what I selected


3) Is the UV window dockable in anyway? Such that I can have half my screen be perspective, and half is UV

I've mapped the stitch button but not the relax button yet, will do that, thanks for the reminder

Mark Dygert

When you stitch you only want to select one of the edges you want merged, not both. Which could be the problem when you select edges in perspective, it selects all of the shared edges. So if you'll need to deselect all but one edge before hitting stitch.

You can stitch long sections together, but only select edges on one side.

I've hit problems in the past when I stitch a long section together and it ends on the edge of a UV island. To get around that I back the selection off by one (using the minus button), stitch the long selection, then stitch the last end piece by itself.

Its not dockable that I know of, but a secondary monitor or a widescreen is highly recommended.

MoP

Max's Stitch actually is a bit better than Maya's. While Maya's works a bit faster (since if you select an edge, it automatically selects the shared edge), in Max you have to only have one side of the seam you want to stitch selected (although it can be any number of edges). Then you can bring up the Stitch settings window, fiddle with the values in there (usually you will want it set up so that the Stitch method scales up the smaller part to match the scale of the larger part), and click Set As Default to store those.

This is better than Maya's because "Move and Sew" doesn't scale elements correctly, and has no options for alignment variance, it's simply an "our way or nothing" solution.

alexk

thanks for all the info! makes a lot more sense, I'll get back to Uv'ing now

Jeremy Lindstrom

getting Page cannot be found on that link MoP.

http://www.greveson.com/scripts/mopTools.ms

Jonathan

3DS Max and Polyboost yields quick results for me.

renderhjs

uvLayout,- like Silo for modeling - this tool is specialized at UV layouting. I dont know a tool that is faster once you mastered it.
http://www.uvlayout.com/

PolyHertz

Chugnut tools is what I've been using for years, and been a great time saver (though not sure if it works in max 2k8-2k9). Past that, going to agree with renderhjs, UVLayout is a great tool. I do all my unwrapping in max before bringing it into headus for cleanup, but you could certainly use it alone to unwrap as well. If you don't have the money to spend on headus though, LSCM unwrap can come in handy for pelt work.

MoP

Dekard wrote: »

getting Page cannot be found on that link MoP.

Whoops, I mis-typed the URL, sorry. It should be:
http://www.greveson.co.uk/scripts/mopTools.ms

Chai

I'd second UV Layout, it's a good plugin even for a modo user. (though I hope they implement an overlap detection soon)