UnWrapping, a n00b question...

DrewSmoot

So I've been doing 3d since...well for a long time now. My work flow has always involved shader creation and hi-poly goodness. How I avoided having to unwrap all these years is as big a mystery to me as it may be to you.

My question is this. Unwrapping a high poly is bullsheesh from what I can tell. Always looks like someone tossed a frag grenade in the mix, even with a clean wireframe. SO even if a low-poly technically isn't needed for a project, would the best bet to make one anyway strictly for texturing the hi-poly?

Thanks in advance.

DrewSmoot

Anyone?

SpeCter

Which program do you use?
Why using a High Poly for a project(What kind of project is it).

Oh and why should you use a low poly to texture the high poly? Normally it´s the other way around.

If you want to texture a highpoly you could use auto generated uv´s (zBrush can do that for example, either use UV Master(to get more or less clean results) or the other uv methods(if you don´t care how the uv´s actually look)

aajohnny

I would never unwrap a high poly... that's ridonkulous. I would do as SpeCter said and do high to low poly bake.... Make a low poly silohette and unwrap that then bake.

Mark Dygert

If you use PTex in Mudbox2012 you don't need to worry about UV's on the high at all. Then you project/bake your high poly details to the low which is easier to unwrap cleanly.

If your planning to sculpt in an app, create a low poly base mesh, unwrap it and then take it into the app and sub-divide, sculpt and paint. UV master is a bit like pelt mapping but kind of sloppy and inefficient and often requires a huge material sheet to get a decent resolution, which isn't much of a problem because this is your high poly and no one cares, but it can slow you down in photoshop working with giant maps and you don't really know how well that giant map will bake down... so its a bit of a pain.

If you're creating the high in a 3D app like Maya or Max you're better off using the high for surface/normal map detail and leave the diffuse creation for photoshop/painter/artrage/gimp whatever...

You might be able to apply a few procedural materials that don't rely on UV's.

Or just go to town unwrapping the high like you normally would (a fragg'ed mess) then bake that to your nicely unwrapped low poly object.

DrewSmoot

Great info guys and thank you much. I'll try out the suggestions and see what works.

@SpeCtar - I use Max and sorry if I worded the post wrong. I wasn't using a high poly to texture a low poly. I was just wondering the best way to unwrap a high poly. The projects I do could be anything from a car or products that need decals put in specific places. And most of my projects are photo-real/hi-poly renders.

Ott

One method I've seen many times in Max and Maya is to create the low poly mesh that would have the edge control you would ultimately use for the high poly.

UVW Unwrap the low "edged up" mesh and texture it, then simply apply the turbosmooth on top of that. If you understand the fundamentals of how high poly works and are skilled at doing sub-d modeling, there's no secrets or guess-work as to what's going to happen to your model after it has been subdivided.

And it's a million times easier to unwrap a non-subdivided mesh after all

I know for certain that ILM and many other "pre-render" studio types use this method, as you aren't nearly as concerned about fine texture detail as game artists are, so much as you generally are using fancier procedural shaders and higher end rendering / lighting solutions.

Hope that helps!

DrewSmoot

0_o ...didn't think about that. But you would still be making a low-poly to unwrap right? Which is fine, I just want to be clear on what you are saying. It's a low poly with reinforced edges to match your hi-poly. Yes?

Jet_Pilot

If your doing super high poly product shots you might want to think about free floating decals. This way all you have to unwrap is the decal. You might have better control until you learn how to unwrap properly. good luck

Mark Dygert

It's not that hard to unwrap the mid-poly (low poly + reinforcing geometry) if its mechanical. You can often use select by planar angle and grab a bunch of polys at the same time, then planar map them stitching a few loops here and there as you go.

If its organic you can turn on peel, define a few seams, break and arrange.