Multiple Unwrap UV coords on diff shaped objects

pixeldamage

Hi all this is my first post.

I'm an experienced Max user but need some help. I have a wall (with arches) modelled of stones of different shapes and sizes that started with one normal-mapped/spec/diffuse block that was FFD'd into various shapes. Obviously the transforms and deformations have caused distortion to the UVs (surpirsingly the normal maps have held up rather well) but now I don't want to unwrap each one, one by one (there's hundreds), and if i attach them first and then unwrap i'm faced with the problem that it unwraps them as one large group rather than unwrapping each block seperately. I want to make the blocks maximize texture resolution so that they use the entire texture per block rather than one texture for the whole wall. As they are all different sizes I can't simply box map the whole wall and scale it up past the 0-1 to 0-200 or whatever as that would give disproportionate texture sizes.

I should've UV'd some first but that's the benefit of hindsight but there were other reasons this wasn't possible.

Let me make it a little clearer as i've found similar issues that are different on here. I want each object to box map with each face fitting the entire 0-1 UV space so that my bitmap tile fits the entire side and seams are less visible (i've made a tiling bitmap). Any help would be really appreciated!!

Eric Chadwick

If you delete the back faces of the blocks/stones, then planar map from the front using a small gizmo size, then select all the UVs in the editor and simply Relax them.. then you should get decent UVs because the back faces aren't getting in the way of the Relax algorithm. The small gizmo would help because the texture is tiled.

pixeldamage

Hey Eric! Yeah that turns out the best alternative. Good to find a way to use the relax method efficiently! Used it several times but only just starting to understand it in my head. A bit like pelt mapping where i don't understand exactly where to put the seams and as i'm no tailor i dont know where seams go on clothing other than the obvious ones (so thinking of clothing seams doesn't really help).

Any ideas on making the stones come to life in vray? they look too cartoony and flat at the moment- did have a normal map on them but it doesn't work nicely-makes them look a little muddy whereas they're supposed to be smooth/hard blocks with wavy edges. Not much room for surface detail except large parts. Hard to explain without pics! damn those nda agreements

Eric Chadwick

Some of the links here might help, especially in the Techniques section
http://wiki.polycount.net/CategoryEnvironment

pixeldamage

Ah thanks Eric! Didn't even realise that area of this site existed! Just had a huge fight with my boss-really struggling getting this environment looking photoreal and getting shit about taking 2weeks+ to model/texture/render a scene that has to look "exactly" like the photo. I think i'm out of my depth but i also get a junior's wage and have done almost double my hours in unpaid overtime. The scene looks ok/good but no where near photoreal. The modelled stones now look even less realistic than the flat phototexture from before. The main critiscm is that it looks too game-y/cartoony.

Eric Chadwick

Not much I can do to help there, I'm afraid. You'd have to post images, but as you said you can't. Good luck with it!