Help Unwrapping this jacket?

Tom Ellis

Hey all, another day another problem!

I posted a couple days ago about the best way to retopo a jacket I was struggling with. It turns out retopology wasn't so hard, but unwrapping it is proving most tricky. The collar needs to be off the chest a little as a chain/strap is going to run underneath it otherwise I'd just retopo over it flat.

Has anyone got any suggestions as to how best to do it? I just can't see where to put the seams, specifically the collar/lapel area. Here's a screenshot:




And here's the OBJ with my current attempt, I've done a test bake and while the normals come out fine, the seams are just too visible. If anyone's got a spare 5 mins to do a quick unwrap how you think it could be done that'd be a great help.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4627207/Comicon%20Challenge%202010/JacketLO.obj

Note it's not packed at all just stuck randomly in the 0-1 since it's gonna be packed with the shells from the rest of the character ultimately anyway.

D4V1DC

Here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/418177384/jack.zip.html

I don't like doing other peoples work but I needed the practice, I made two you also have a polygon missing that I didn't fix right side of the flap.

Practice would have been better than having someone else do It, I gave It a shot hope It works out for you.

Showing a resulting render with my unwrap would be a nice thing to do, just because.

Tom Ellis

Thanks so much man really appreciate it.

I know it would've been better for me to figure it out but I was totally stumped. I just couldn't work out where seams should go.

I redid it myself anyway just looking at your seam placement. I figured it might work better to put the seams over the shoulder since there'll be some other geometry hiding them, and also I stitched the front piece to keep things nice and square as well as get rid of the seam.



Here's the mesh with the UVs. Yours is on the left, mine on the right (which is exactly the same just with the front stitched and shoulders split).



Thanks again for taking the time to do it.

Mark Dygert

I'll take a crack at it and put a slightly different spin on it with an eye for fewest seams possible.
I squared off the lower waist part and the cuffs, I also mirrored the sleeves which could probably arranged uniquely but you might be able to get away with them mirrored, it all depends on how it looks. I would probably spend a few more minutes nudging around the verts with soft selection on and relaxing bits and pieces to minimize some of the distortion, but you get the idea.


File: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2336353/JacketUnwrap.obj

Farfarer

If you're struggling with unwrapping clothing, it can help to unwrap it along where the actual cloth seams are. That way the UV seams are hidden naturally in the actual seams of the stitching.

That said, Vig's unwrap is probably the way to go

thomasmahler

http://vimeo.com/8707453

Maybe that helps

Tom Ellis

Thanks for ther replies everyone.

Vig: yeah that looks a lot tidier thanks man, I'm not sure the outer lapel would be too easy to texture like that though. I'm not sure about stacking the sleeves yet, they might need unique textures.

Talon / Thomas : Thanks guys. that's a very useful way of looking at it, 'like a tailor would' thinking about real seams in clothing. It makes perfect sense and I'll bear that in mind from now on!

Thanks again all.

swytch

Vig did it the way I did, just better and faster, of course.

You may have fixed these already, but the .obj I downloaded from your first post had two minor geometry errors. A hole in the left lapel, and an edge too far into the collar on the right.

Tom Ellis

Thanks Swytch!

Yep $!nz pointed out the hole, but I hadn't noticed the stray edge! Cheers for pointing that out.