Unwrapping Channel 2 problem
So I am trying to unwrap the 2nd channel and when I do it effects the 1st channel. I searched on the forum for other people that had problems and that didn't seem to help. When I hit the Reset UV's it resets all UV channels regardless what channel I have selected. I have all tried to add a UV Mapping Add/Clear to see if that makes a difference, and I still have the problem of it effecting the other channels. O yeah, I'm in Max 2010.
Any ideas on why this isn't working for me and what I can do?
Any ideas on why this isn't working for me and what I can do?
Replies
The work flow I use that's worked fine in every version of max goes like this:
- Create model.
- Unwrap to Channel 1.
- Collapse stack to burn in UV's.
- Apply UnwrapUVW.
- Change channel to 2 (without opening the editor window).
- Click reset UVW's (without opening the editor window).
- Launch editor window.
- Unwrap channel 1.
- Collapse.
- Apply UnwrapUVW again.
- Change channel to channel 2 and hit 'Save current settings as default'.
- Remove the modifier, not collapsing it!
- If you apply your UnwrapUVW modifier again, it will edit channel 2 without touching channel 1.
But be careful. Don't forget to change the default settings back to channel1 when you are done editing channel 2
Hope this helps.
@Vig, Going to try your method. Never did it that way
In earlier Max versions changing the UV Channels in the Unwrap Modifier didn't carry over the current Unwrap, so when you realized that you unwrapped the wrong channel and changed it, you had to start over. Sometime (don't exactly know when) this was changed, so you have to press 'reset' if you want to look at a existing UV Channel different to 1 (unless you set it to Channel 2 by default...see Turoid). If you set your Unwrap Modifier to Channel 2 and open the Editor, you'll see the same UVs as in Chanel 1. You can copy this UVs into the new Channel this way, if you want, but in any case changing this layout will not affect Channel 1 (unless o course you change the Modifier back to Channel 1...).
So uuh Akkrias, go for Vigs one
And sadly, Piflik is incorrect as well regarding "One Unwrap Modifier can only store one UV Channel." The Unwrap UVW modifier is not storing anything. The Unwrap is simply a modifier that creates UV information added and stored in the mesh itself. You can create 50 UV channels in 1 UVW modifier if you do it correctly.
The only thing I would add that you might not be doing, is that ANYtime I create a new UV set, whether it's UV channel 2 or 60 is make sure I collapse the stack to "bake" the UV info into the mesh. Once you have done this, you should be able to freely edit those UV channels as needed. Just make sure you are collapsing often and saving frequently.
Do tell. Can't do it with one UVW Unwrap modifier AFIAK.
You are contradicting yourself here...if you could create more than one UV Channel in one Modifier, there would be absolutely no need for collapsing...Unwrap Modifiers do store one UV Channel. If you unwrap your model and delete the Modifier, the Layout is lost...seems clear to me where the information is stored...only if you collapse the Modifier, the information stored there is baked into the Mesh...when you add a new Modifier onto the mesh and start modifying an existing Map Channel, you also have to collapse this modifier to store the new layout in the mesh. If you change your Map Channel to edit a second Layout (without collapsing and/or adding a new Unwrap Modifier), you will lose all progress on the first one.
You need to collapse to save the UV changes to the mesh. You're fine to use one modifier as long as you've saved/collapsed the stack and baked in your changes.
It would be nice if save was renamed export since it saves to an external file and doesn't bake anything into the mesh, and save actually baked the UV's without having to collapse. You can save/export the UV's and load them each time you want to work on that channel but its easier to collapse/save and work in one modifier.
You can see the UV's added to the mesh by going to Edit>Channel Info. Every UV channel shows up as 1:Map, 2:Map and so on. With a new channel applied for the first time it shows up saved to the mesh.
Once you collapse and the UVs have been baked in/saved to the mesh you can switch between channels using "resetUV's" each time to refresh the editor window. The wonkiness that people hit is that they don't bake/save the UV's to the mesh before switching channels so it resets to the last save.
This is why Max pretty much sucks for doing a lot of multiple UV's. You're collapsing like crazy, refreshing the window and in general being pestered by useless warnings no one bothers reading. Thankfully we only juggle 2 maybe 3 at the most and its not that much of a chore but they could improve it.
Yes you can do it with 50 modifiers, and I normally do it that way when I work with just 2 (after I've done the workflow I outlined above to save the first UV channel before adding the 2nd) but you're not saving your UV's to the mesh unless you collapse so its kind of a risky venture.
Just collapse the stack to save your changes, reapply UnwrapUVW, change your channel and hit reset to start working on that channel. No need for 50 modifiers.
Need to go back down to the previous channel, collapse, Apply Unwrap, change channel, reset and edit (same steps as above).
Using 50 separate modifiers will not save/bake the changes you make to the UV's until you collapse/bake/save. The stack is dependent on whats going on below so you could accidentally change something that effects all the other modifiers up the stack, causing you to lose your work which hasn't been collapsed/saved/baked since you started.
But we're arguing work flow now so you can do it whichever way is fastest for you,. If you like to work in 50 modifiers without saving your work as you go that's fine I guess. As long as you don't put out misinformation I guess we're done.
I, too, collapse the Unwrap before going to another channel...more often than not I also collapse during unwrapping to be able to go back to a former state without problems, if I mess up...
Thanks!