Face unwrapping problem!

Taylor Hood

Hey, I've started this new project. It's on pimping and reviews but no one seems to have posted in 2 days. Anyways, I have a problem with face unwrapping... I am not really experienced in it. I use cylindrical mapping but what I want is for the ear to be at the side it should be but I'm getting all these weird cut edges or whatever on the side. I have tried puting pelt seams on the ears, eyes and under the kneck and stuff like that. How should I go at this?

Acumen

have you tried some pelt mapping and/or relaxing the uv's ?
i always thought for organic stuff like faces, pelt/relax would be an awesome combo to get fast and clean results (if the mesh is clean)

Taylor Hood

I've tried pelt mapping it. It doesn't come out right.

Taylor Hood

Well I'm stuck... tried everything.

Taylor Hood

WHY IS THE EAR ON THE OTHER SIDE? -.-

Farfarer

With cylindrical mapping, it'll choose one edge of the projection cylinder as the vertical seam. You should be able to rotate the projection to align that edge with the seams you want it to have.

However, you'll probably have better results with pelt mapping as you can then select the exact seams you want. And then hammer the hell out of it with relax as the pelt mapping is ultimately useless.

Ark

Im no expert in unwrapping organic stuff, but i think you need more cut lines in order to use pelt mapping properly.

Try adding a cut line down the back of the head and one small one along the throat. Then project, stitch and relax.

Taylor Hood

Okay I tried to pelt to halfs of a face. It works pretty well but just some distortion which is natural. I need to stitch stuff together yeah?

Ark

Well, the less dis-continuous islands the better to prevent texture seams.

Taylor Hood

Is that looking alright for the stitching?

Mark Dygert

I would stitch up the forehead some more and hide the seam farther back in the head. You'll get some distortion but its probably easily hidden and you won't have a huge ugly seam running down the middle of his forehead.

It looks like you have some clean up work to do around the eyes and possibly the mouth. I see some overlapping and pinching here and there.

Suggestion 1) Relax works really well on a selection of verts.
Suggestion 2) It is a good idea to turn on soft select when doing this so it blends into the surrounding areas.

Taylor Hood

Indeed. Thanks. Yeah, I'm using soft select. Wonderful tool. Also, I'm putting eyeballs in the eye socket so distortion doesn't matter there I guess.