Newbie UV symmetry question (overlapping shells)

Yamo

Quick question guys: I have a low poly character that I'm unwrapping which is (essentially) completely symmetrical down the center. Obviously in my diffuse it would be good to only have to texture one side since both sides are the same

If I want to overlap shells in my UV layout, is there anything more to it than mirroring one side on the layout and moving it over top of the other side?

edit: This is in Max 2010 by the way

Eric Chadwick

Sure. Easiest way though is to collapse the modifier stack (to "bake" any UV edits), delete half the model, add a Symmetry modifier, then add a UVW Unwrap if you want to edit any non-symmetrical UVs.

Only caveat is if you're going to use a normal map at some point, then you'll need to check how the UVs will best work in your target game engine.

renderhjs

If you want to solve it just within that UVunwrap modifier, here is another way by using TexTools:

Using the Symmetry tool

1. you can mirror averge values on booth sides or like in your case select half of the faces you want to mirror and translate them to the other side:
   
2. Next select the half of the faces you want to mirror and overlap and mirror it with the Max UV tools
3. Using the Transform toolbar in TexTools that floats on top of the UV editor
   
   You can arrange shells by selecting booth UV shells (face selection) and then hit the align left, right or whatever direction you want to align button, like this with the faces selected:
   

But old school you can use the symmetry modifier and add a unwrap- Modifier after it like Eric described.

Eric Chadwick

renderhjs' tools are certainly worth learning, lots of cool stuff in there, lots of great time-savers.

Elyaradine

Sorry for I'm bumping an old thread, but I have a similar question and the search brought me here. Which was perfect, because this is also a newbie question.

I'm unwrapping a model that has partial symmetry, and I'd like for certain shells to overlap to save UV space - in particular, the two hands.

I didn't use the Mirror tool because they were separate shells on opposite ends of the geometry.

I tried copy-pasting the one hand to the other, and although the faces are in the right place, they've all been rotated (each face is rotated, so that the vertices are welded to the wrong vertices in the next face), so the checkerboard appears really screwed up on the pasted hand. I think XSI has a tool that rotates an individual face (which basically cycles the vert positions), but I don't know of a Max tool that does that.

Anyhow, so I ended up plane mapping them individually, but they don't align perfectly. Is there a way to snap the vertices of one shell to the closest ones in another?

Piflik

Collapse the UVW Modifier, delete one Hand, copy the other to its position and weld the seams.

Elyaradine

Ha! Thank you! :P