Best UV relaxing tools?

Bokaja

Any have experience with a great tool for relaxing UV maps?
I've heard of Deep UV and maybe there's some great freeware I'm missing out on?

I use the relax tool in the 3dsMax unwrap modifier so far...




Thanks for your time.

Mark Dygert

I use 3dsmax too, I've tried out a few tools but in the end I pretty much stick to max.

HeadusUV (not free, wonky interface has some cool tools but really not worth it IMHO)
http://www.headus.com/au/uvlayout/

Crazy Butchers LSCM Unwrap (Great script)
http://www.luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmax

kite212

unwrella

renderhjs

uvLayout, anything else compared by it is just poor in performance, features and workflow including all specific UV tools that are on the market.
But if you are just after relaxing its not worth the hefty price,- maybe then instead go with Roadkill, existing max/maya relaxing tools or like mentioned above the Crazy Butchers LSCM Unwrap script.


Deep UV is from what I know not really developed anymore at least update wise its getting really dusty. If you are going to the official forum of DeepUV, for example the general discussion page
http://www.righthemisphere.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=34
you will notice that not only its very empty and dusty from the user side but also from the developer side.
My assumption is that in general the company has some troubles getting them selfs into proper shape. The whole website looks like its done by only marketing people trying to sell their company to get rich whereas if you are really interested in the products its really hard to find usefull media or informations like some screenshots, a PDF overview, videos or real quotes from products that used it.


if you want to know anything UV specific, or perhaps some UV scripts you can ask me

claydough

renderhjs wrote: »

uvLayout, anything else compared by it is just poor in performance, features and workflow including all specific UV tools that are on the market.
But if you are just after relaxing its not worth the hefty price,- maybe then instead go with Roadkill, existing max/maya relaxing tools or like mentioned above the Crazy Butchers LSCM Unwrap script.


Deep UV is from what I know not really developed anymore at least update wise its getting really dusty. If you are going to the official forum of DeepUV, for example the general discussion page
http://www.righthemisphere.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=34
you will notice that not only its very empty and dusty from the user side but also from the developer side.
My assumption is that in general the company has some troubles getting them selfs into proper shape. The whole website looks like its done by only marketing people trying to sell their company to get rich whereas if you are really interested in the products its really hard to find usefull media or informations like some screenshots, a PDF overview, videos or real quotes from products that used it.


if you want to know anything UV specific, or perhaps some UV scripts you can ask me

uvlayout gits my vote as well.
renderhjs: have u tried blender's relax? ( I am hoping for a cheap alternative to headus. )

renderhjs

claydough: yes but not really in depth or much. I have been told however by other students I know that it is supposed to be real good in comparison with max or maya. Crazy Butchers LSCM Unwrap is based on the Blender LSCM unwrapping code which is also why he put it free under the opensource license.
There is another technique called abf that roadkill for example offers and some few other tools. It would be nice to see autodesk adding booth concepts soon in 3dsmax as well in their relaxing dialogues.

btw. did anyone else noticed this?
http://www.roadkillpro.com/
its mentioned on his other site:
http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

Must type this quickly before Vista crashes again but you might be interested in a new much improved commercial version of Roadkill available from http://www.roadkillpro.com/ Fully integrated into Maya, 3ds Max and Softimage on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. No GPL code included before anyone asks

seems that the guy behind roadkill aims for a commercial version of his project. I am already hooked of what he could have added because only uvLayout so far really impresses from the UV specific applications.

James Edwards

UVLayout ftw. Well worth the money for me. Not only one of the best unwrapping methods, but also several options for relaxing by uv chunk/island or brushes for doing localized tweaks and stuff. The UI is one of my favorite aspects of the tool. Heavily shortcut and mouse driven, which I like.

renderhjs

UVLayout ftw. Well worth the money for me. Not only one of the best unwrapping methods, but also several options for relaxing by uv chunk/island or brushes for doing localized tweaks and stuff...

and lets not forget you can frickin define rule sets like edge loop constraints, edge to axis constraints, linear flow pinning or regular pinning that are all incorporated in the relaxing algorithm.

The UI is one of my favorite aspects of the tool. Heavily shortcut and mouse driven, which I like.

mine too, its super fast workflow wise if not the fastest application I know besides perhaps silo.
No bloaty autodesk graphite Tools or ViewCube, Adobe Creative Suite alike GUI that drains the performance so immense.

gaganjain

Roadkill was gr8
Roadkill pro start open Beta testing so it can develop fast....

James Edwards

renderhjs wrote: »

and lets not forget you can frickin define rule sets like edge loop constraints, edge to axis constraints, linear flow pinning or regular pinning that are all incorporated in the relaxing algorithm.
mine too, its super fast workflow wise if not the fastest application I know besides perhaps silo.
No bloaty autodesk graphite Tools or ViewCube, Adobe Creative Suite alike GUI that drains the performance so immense.

Yeah it is one of those rare specialized tools that is fully justified in being a separate app. It does so much that it needs to be a separate program so that the UI can be fully focused on everything it is capable of.

I love all the pinning and edge constraint stuff too! Great for all kinds of uses other than just organic unwraps.

Bokaja

Very interesting guys - I'll dive into all the sweet advice

Thanks