3ds max UV relax problem,any alternatives?

Thewiruz

Hello.
I think I'm going to loose my mind soon!

I have unwrapped a pretty simple model,Now when i try to relax some parts of the mesh it destroy it completely.

Strage enough its just a few parts that doesn't relax correctly!

Is there any script for 3ds max 2010 that works better then the original or a relax tool?I have tried all settings i can think of

Mark Dygert

The shells that are distorting are inverted and its attempting to flip them over as it relaxes. In the UV editor if you go poly mode > Main Menu > Select > Select Inverted it will highlight the shells that need to be flipped. You can then use the Mirror tool to flip those shells.

Thewiruz

Thanks vig!

But that didnt help much i dont have any flipped faces now but still it try to wrap the uvs around.Strange!!!

Thanks always nice to learn new functions

[Deleted User]

Have you tried relaxing the problem shells separately? Sometimes it produces different results when multiple shells are selected at once. I don't fully understand the technical reasons, but it seems to make a difference.

Mark Dygert

It's probably relaxing poorly now because there are holes in the shells. If you welded the broken off parts, into the holes it would probably relax a little better. Also remember that you can turn on soft select and relax a few verts at a time. Doing this sometimes helps with trouble areas.

Neox

Thewiruz wrote: »

Thanks vig!

But that didnt help much i dont have any flipped faces now but still it try to wrap the uvs around.Strange!!!

Thanks always nice to learn new functions

just in case you misunderstood it, mirror the chunks in the uveditor, no the faces themselfs, if you didn't nevermind, just in case

Tumerboy

Ya, I'd guess it's because of the holes. Max has issues with rings of UVs with nothing in the middle. A little extra work, but you could select those faces in the UV editor, collapse the stack, go into poly mode and those should be selected. Detatch, cap the holes, edit UVs, relax, collapse, delete the temp geo, and merge it all back together.

Thewiruz

thanks all!

The strange thing is that only one side is destorted when running the relax tool!
The other side has holes in it too ,Hm anyway i will try that but this isnt speed modeling/textureing

Im always run into some kind of issue !I might be something wrong but this kind of shape always go bezerk ,And its often i use shapes that the uv editor doesnt like

Is there any external application that would fix this problem better then 3ds max?
Or plugin/script to Max?

renderhjs

3dsMax has multiple ways of relaxing (edge angles or face angles for example) just dig with the checkboxes and spinners in the relax dialog.
Your 3d model doesn't look that complicated so just a planar map might do the trick as well. Good 3rd party tools are Headus UVlayout and the free roadkill to unwrap your model using more modern approaches or flattening the shells.

PredatorGSR

I know that in Maya if you still have transforms on the model like scale and rotate, that can screw up uv unfolding, does Max suffer from the same limitation?

Thewiruz

Well i think Autodesk should take a big look at the uv system in Max,The biggest thing that has happen since max 3 is the peltmapping.Its like the development has been put aside and still a very important tool in Max.

I don't say its worthless but they should update that side of the app along with new features.

Well its the anatomy of the mesh,I have been trying with other meshes that looks the same and still same problem so I'm not sure

might be cutting the mesh wrong?Anyway i will try flattenmapping and stich ,UV layout is good !Maybe Autodesk shuld pay the man to implement UV layout in Max

Eric Chadwick

Why do you need to relax those UVs? I don't see any real stretching.

Thewiruz

Its on the other side there is some streching,The faces go crazy so i need to try another way

Ott

If you have mirrored the UV's, which it looks like you did, one side of that object is always going to be inverted, causing the relax operation not to function correctly.

Start by completely laying the UVs out flat with nothing overlapped and then stitch both sides together where it meets at the top, and then running relax.

Also, I would suggest switching to "Relax by Face angles" in the drop down, and instead of using the Stop-Start for relax, you simply press the "Apply" button instead.

When I want to mirror the UV's for a somewhat organic / broken sorta mesh like this, I would start by UVing one side of the object, relax it as necessary, and then use symmetry for the opposite side. Then, do the sides / top as needed. This will ensure that the UVs on the front and back of the mesh are identical as intended.

aphexx

first have a look at your topology. for the relax tool, long and thin faces are poison.
(for vertex lighting if used also btw.) mixed up with a couple of holes and/or the already mentioned mirroring of the uv coords, its a guaranteed fail.

try to set up a clean geometry at the expense of some more polys.
get a mesh like i painted in blue:


even if you'll get 100 tris more, it will be ok, for this bigger prop.

then also keep in mind, that there is no problem in having some more uv chunks/islands, than you have there. you just need to set them an own smoothing group per island.
the normalmap will still work without any bigger seams.

btw. the "broken" concrete mesh parts, still have too much triangles. you do not have any advantage from them when using a baked normal. try to use the polys in silhouettes instead.

yiannisk

aphexx wrote: »

first have a look at your topology.

i was about to say that. this is not a very good model.

edit: ok i just noticed.
try keeping boundary points fixed.
and definitely improve your model as was suggested by apphexx