Slow UV unwrap, Please Help.

longhornfan25

So I created a 15,000 poly Train that will go into a UDK scene and I've already unwrapped it for the diffuse and so on.. Now I need to edit the existing UV's so i can make a light-map. But when I go to edit it,3DS lags so much that its unworkable. Its slower now because I cloned alot of the original pieces (e.g. Bolts/Wheels/Pipes).

So my question is, how can i get it to not lag? Do i need to buy more memory for my computer? Or get a new graphics card? It would be nice if i didn't have to buy any hardware, so is there a efficient "auto-packer" program/plug-in that I can use?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Comp Specs:
Win 7
AMD Athlon x2 Dual core processor 3800+
GeForce 9400gt
RAM 2gb

edit: Hopefully what i'm trying to say makes sense, it's been a long day...

btw i'm using 2012 3DS Max

longhornfan25

bump...

longhornfan25

BUMP..please..please

keres

Break it up into pieces. That is the only reasonable option, especially with your hardware.

longhornfan25

i tried that, but once you do it. you cant see if your overlapping other pieces, since the only pieces that are selected are visible .
thank you for response

knak47

Actually break your model into seperate Objects. If you are still getting issues with lag than this method also allows you to work on each piece in its own MAX file, you shouldnt experience issues if you have to work this route.

You can also allow UDK to perform your lightmap unwrap. This has never worked to well for me though.

That sounds like an extremely highpoly train.

Vectroid

Assuming you are using 3ds Max 2012, go to your UV Editor > Options > Preferences > Display Preferences and make sure to uncheck "constant update in viewports" That's what makes it lag so much.

Another option would be to ditch 3ds Max for UV Unwrapping completely and load your obj into RoadKill (Which I much prefer for unwrapping) Yes you do need to learn a new software but it works really well (even with some quirky behaviour here and there).

longhornfan25

Thanks for your responses everyone! Is RoadKill good for packing? Because everything is already unwrapped, i'm just re-packing for the lightmap.

thanks

Froyok

Roadkill is just good for unwrapping, not packing.
I'm surprised : can't you select all your mesh (with assuming that you have broken your train into different pieces) and see all of them at the same time in the UV editor ?
I know Maya can do it, but not Max ?

longhornfan25

yes you can. but its still lags when you do that.

I'm gonna try Vectroid suggestion

Ace-Angel

Not really, Roadkill is good for laying our the foundation of your Unwraps, but it's extremely limited to what Max currently has in 2012.

I would only suggest Roadkill if you have Textools for Max since there is an option for a quick export/import function in it.

You're still going to have to relax and correct any overlaps from there as position, plus, I don't think Roadkill has a padding option. What really brings it down is any mesh over 8K polies is going to really cut down in speed, and you can very well crash with a 15K mesh.

Plus, pressing A (which is zoom all, I think) actually causes your mesh to shrink in size when you import back into Max.

I think the problem with your UV editor being slow is that your have a high poly model. Mind showing us what it looks like?

Also, are you in Nitrous or DX9 mode? Your card isn't doing you any favor for Nitrous, and your 2GB RAM isn't going to have the easiest of times. Do you have many modifiers stacked ontop of your model?

Vectroid

Woopsie, sorry for misreading the OP, I didn't realize what you were trying to do with it.

However I did have 2012's UV editor lag on me before and turning off constant update fixed it. It was taking too much system resources to redraw things in the viewports while you are making the changes in your UVs. It's nifty but I don't need it more than half the time.

That model does sound pretty huge though.

Stromberg90

Just wondering, sure it doesn't have anything to do with you CPU, cause isn't that fucking old?
I am pretty sure I had that one myself 6 years ago, and it did not work very well when doing 3D.
Just saying :P

Envart

3DIO's uvpacker is excellent for creating lightmaps. The trial version has a limit of 7200 tri, however.

Mark Dygert

If it lags only when closing the editor window, know that was an issue for just about everyone and they sorted it out in the latest service packs.

Win 7
AMD Athlon x2 Dual core processor 3800+
GeForce 9400gt
RAM 2gb

Win7 and max running on 2gb of ram? Its a wonder you even got max to launch at all.

Win7 32bit requires 2gb of ram, 4 if you're using 64bit. Thats just to get the OS up and running, probably not much more you can do with that little bit of ram.
3dsmax requires 2gb, 4gb recommended. I would assume that's on top of the 2-4gb windows requires so already you're pretty far behind just starting up max.

Your CPU meets the min spec but is pretty slow. Max also favors Intel so your CPU isn't doing you any favors.

Your video card is a 512mb card and Autodesk recommends a 1gb card.

Also if you're 3dsmax viewport display driver is set to nitrous you're seriously going to be hurting trying to do much of anything, you should set that back to DirectX or possibly even software. Also make sure you close the ribbon it will slow you down a bit too.

Personally with a system this old you should probably go back to max9.

Ace-Angel

Walrus wrote: »

3DIO's uvpacker is excellent for creating lightmaps. The trial version has a limit of 7200 tri, however.

I can attest to that, it is indeed cool, but it creates seams on your model usually once you collapse it.

D4V1DC

Everything mark says and after that if you are still struggling and only need the UV unwrap window, just a shot in the dark but try importing all the objects and making them display as a box, that should free up some memory. Worth giving It a shot at least best of luck with this.

Artist_in_a_box

Im not sure if this helps but my first attempt at creating a lightmap for this would be to

• Split the model into 4 sections of similar 'ish' size
• In the UV window for each one use the select - select inverted faces and then mirror flip them over. (If they are welded to stuff then sort that out before mirror flipping ofc.
• Then go to tools-pack and pack them using whatever settings you want. (Be sure to pay attention to the spacing though, max default pack comes with a massive space between UV pieces)
• In a perfect world this would be all that matters but ususally I then go in manually and play with the UV's to optimize the packing
• Do this for the 4 sections and then scale them down and arrange them to take up a quarter each of the UV space to make up a full UV square.
• You will probably need to do a little bit more optimizing at this point to make the most of the space and if this still lags your machine I would suggest hiding the object in viewport and turning off real time update n stuff to save memory as much as possible. As well as all the other things i.e turning off your porn, music and whatever else is on at the time

I hope this is a helpful suggestion.

mortalhuman

You could always save out a UV layout for each finished piece and save over a main one you use in the UV editor.

in other words:

1 unwrap a piece. Save the UV layout.

2 Use the UV layout under the next piece. Add the next piece's layout to same image. Repeat.

In this way, you have a visual representation of the used space without actually having to have the uv mesh present in the active UV unwrap window.