Hello Everyone.
I have recently started to work in Maya and really love it so far. But when i opened the uv editor i almost got an heart attack. I asked around and got really scared when i heard that there is no textools,roadkill,or any other good plugin for uv mapping in maya 2011, what to do ? anyone have any good tutorial that easy explains the workflow in maya or should i just use another program for the uv mapping ?
thanks alot.
Replies
http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm
Its great. I think it also interfaces with Roadkill for the ABF++ and LSCM unwrapping methods if I remember rightly but it also has a lot of extra great tools on top of that.
Warheart, that script looks nice, will give it a try at work tomorrow.
http://tools3d.com/news.php
Thanks warheart that scripts looks really helpful !! , thanks alot bro !
thank you for the answer bal.
thanks alot for the link, i do mostly buildings and need control on a basic level, i actually am looking for scripts that makes repeated stuff go faster.
Sure, first of all let me just explain today is my second day ever using maya,i have worked in blender,3ds max before and i think that thoose uv tools explain themself. in Maya however i dont understand a thing. if i select a cube in the viewport and try to move faces on top of each other inside the uv editor the y bounce away from each other, faces disapear inside the editor it i just a mess.
so lets start with the basics. i have seen tutorial and still dont get it.
1. is it any easy way to drag verts to snap to another?
2. is it any easy way to proportional flatten all the faces from the selected object in the viewport and work with them in the uv editor without the faces dissapering all of the sudden ?
3. does maya have any fast rotate,scale,move tool like max (all in one)
also if you have any tutorials or links about uv editor in maya 2011 please share !
3- As far as i know the universal manipulator doesnt work in the uv window, at least not in older versions of maya, i'm currently using 2008... But for the most part just using hotkeys like W for move E for rotate, and R for scale, will speed things up, as well as the 45 degree rotation tools inside the uv editor
First off, stay away from the unfold and layout tools that ship with maya. They are garbage that either shoehorn your model, or just choke on complex geo.
(Here's an entertaining video on how to make the broken tools actually work the way you'd expect http://vimeo.com/16590844)
My personal solution is a combination of custom hotkeys, Castor Auto UV Mapper linked above, and Roadkill Pro (http://www.roadkillpro.com/).
For hotkeys, I've got rotate 45 cw and 45 ccw mapped to Shift+e and Shift+r. Select UV island/shell Shift+a. Cut selected to Shift+c, and Move and Sew UV's to Shift+s
(The snapping problem you're having with UV's bouncing back is a 'feature' of the move selected uv shell tool. Press w to get out of that tool and back to your move tool and you'll be able to move the shell like normal. Avoid that tool like the plague, it will only frustrate you. Hence my hotkey.)
I mostly use CAS Auto Unfold for the magic 'Relax selected component' and 'Relax entire UV shell' buttons. It also introduces Blender's unwrapping methods, but Roadkill Pro is the more elegant solution.
Sadly, I don't know if you can even buy Roadkill Pro anymore. The site just takes you to a splash page. Apparently rampant piracy made the author abandon the project.
Thanks alot mate you must be my soulmate. if you find ANY links,tutorials,videotutorials,tips, please let me know i am seriously depressed right now, i really love the modelling part in Maya but the uv editor is awful i mean it has tools from the 1400 century ! , look at headus uv,unfold 3d,blender,maxtools. i am beginning to suspect that autodesks personel are mushroom users.
Your uv workflow just needs to fit the program. My usual maya uv workflow was automatic map, break most of the verts, unfold, stitch. The unfold command is very good, you just have to slide between face and edge to get good results. The huge advantage that Maya has is that you can select multiple edges and stitch them at once, unlike in Max. That means you can automatic map, break all the edges, unfold them so they are all perfectly unwrapped, select the areas you want and stitch them all at once, and unfold again. It might sound complicated, but it is a very fast workflow for environment assets once you get used to it.
Perhaps, personally i think a good program makes you understand things even without trying,pure logic, i have tryed uv mapping in maya and its still confusing, i mean just jumping between uv and face,one can move with the middle mouse the other cant, its just a big mess ! , where are the fast multitools? jesus. i agree that max is as retarted as maya when it comes to the uv mapping part. again if you dont have textools your out of the game. but at least textools exists. in maya what do you have. i want control on a basic level (select on face quickly snap it tp another face in the uv-editor), i mean for fucks sake, you cant even se the vertecies in the uv editor in maya if you dont select them ,what the fuck is up with that shit ?, you dont even have a proper face mode while in uv , 2011 ?!? , i am serious when i hear people meantioning that this isnt so bad i get nightmares. i dont work in the 3d app industry but i could not even write something this stupid if i tryed. i mean there are even free programs open source that has theese solutions,are the personel on autodesk blind or something ?
awsome man,thanks, what kind of scripts/plugins do you use ?
unify uv shell size, unfortunately it always unifies the shells to hard coded size
cut uv's around selected faces
stack selected shells on top of each other
mover uv shells to center of uv editor
map selected faces into a uniform strip
average selected uv's along u
average selected uv's along v
The main thing I find missing from Maya is the freefrom transformation tool, everything else seems pretty similar just named differently.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/texturing/c/kam-mapper
It costs $20 but it's well worth it to me, there are some simple commands which you could put together yourself in scripts like the move commands, and the normalize*unit, but these are nicely integrated into a GUI. The edge mapping and quick straighten alone pay for themselves. The align shell tools are nifty too.
Another useful uv script I've seen for simply manipulating UVs (some of the same options as Kam) is SDV_xformUV, and it's free.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/texturing/c/sdv_xformuv
Dude thanks alot, xform looks EXACTLY what i have been looking for. hope i can install it with no trouble,thanks alot man !