UVW Unwrap Issues. -.-

Scizz

I swear unwrapping is the sole thing that is halting my progression. Anyway, I need a little help. I want to unwrap this simple shape. I've tried multiple ways of approaching it but none of them seem to just work. I think it has to to with where I'm putting my seams.
This is the object:

The blue lines are where the seems are. I then use pelt map to stretch it out, then go into the editor and relax by face angles and setting the amount to 1. It seems to be fine but then when I apply a texture to it, there is very noticeable stretching.

NO matter how straight I align the edges I still get a warped texture on the sides.
.
:poly127:

sprunghunt

That's going to happen. When unwrapping you usually have to compromise between texture distortion and having texture seams everywhere.

However in this specific case you probably won't notice a bit of distortion in that spot on the model.

In general I would advise against assessing this kind of problem in an abstract way.

It's easy to look at a grid pattern and start panicking over a bit of texture distortion. However once you've got the actual texture on there it may not matter at all.

Scizz

But will this kind of distortion affect my bakes? Also, why is this happening in the first place to such a geometric shape.

_Swerve_

if you cut the diagonal seams you will see how the UV's would need to be laid out if you wanted no stretching, but the way you have it now the UVs would overlap which is generally not to good.

gsokol

Just so you know...your pelting together areas that have a 90 degree angle with a hard edge. You can separate those pieces into their own islands with no negative performance impact. Those verts are being split in the model from the hard edges anyways.

Also, if your doing any baking on the mesh...its going to look like crap if you dont. The areas with the hard edges are going to come out funny and your probably going to get gradients in your bake. In general, you want have any angle near 90 degrees or more with a hard edge (like you have) and you want those to be seperate uv islands with a little bit of padding between them.

Scizz

OK guys, thanks for the advise guys, I'll try a different approach. My seams are in correct though right?

Scizz

Alright, well I managed to cleanly unwrap my object, but when test bake using ray miss check, it says its missing basically the entire model. I checked for overlapping and inverted UVs, there are none. I'm completly stuck. I've followed The 3D Motive Sci Fi Workflow tutorial and A CG Tuts tutorial. PLus many others and I still get stuck.


Any advice? I'm tired of being behind this brick wall. :poly122:

gsokol

Is that your high poly way off from the low poly in that first image there?

You want the high and low be in the exact same spot. That would explain your ray misses... there's no geometry nearby for the rays to pick up.

Scizz

LOL! yeah its been awhile. let me try this again.

Scizz

Alright thank you! I managed to bake and do a quick WIP test texture.

This is what I'm going for.

I really need to get my textures to a higher quality though. Here is my diffuse and Normal.


I don't want this to turn into a pimpin n previews type thread, but if there is any more advice so far as my UV layout or the textures please let me know!:thumbup:

sprunghunt

Scizz wrote: »

but if there is any more advice so far as my UV layout or the textures please let me know!:thumbup:

give it more edge padding!

Scizz

Doesn't that mean I'll have to texture all over again?

sprunghunt

Scizz wrote: »

Doesn't that mean I'll have to texture all over again?

Not if you've done your texture with layers. I'd at least fill the background with a colour that's not black.

Mark Dygert

You could probably do the materials for that object with tiles instead and save a lot of texture space. But that would mean forgoing Ambient Occlusion unless you used a 2nd UV channel.

Alternatively with the current way it is constructed you could mirror and repeat a lot of the textures.

cryrid

Seeing how small those extrusions are on the model, I wouldn't worry about the distortions.

I'm not sure if you need to make every side to the table unique either. If you did two sides instead of 4 you'd be given more texture room to work with, and even more if you could find a way to mirror that pattern on the very top.

Scizz

All these suggestions require a whole other bake though correct?

Edit: I just remembered something also. In general, the more space I have on my UV Layout the larger I can make the UVS, which boost the quality of the texture right? It increases the texel density?

Scizz

Alright, I think I got a good bake but my texture seems kind of off.

And this is the result. Looks a little better in UDK but not by much.


I feel like the reason the quality of my texture is so low is because of the UVs. I think I can organize my UV's better to allow a better texel density, I'm just not sure how to go about it just from the examples above. = /

unstoppablex

since this is wide mesh i would of sugguested using a 512x1024 map. that way you'd fill up more of the texture.

Scizz

How would I go about doing that in the UVW unwrap modifier in Max. I know how to change the the size when rendering my UV's but what about editing them?

Edit: Well I found out how to do it, and I'm able to pack my UV's much better. Credit to Mark

Mark Dygert wrote: »

In max, in the UV editor window click the options button (lower right), turn on "Use Custom Bitmap Size" and set it to 512x1024.

OR

Save out a blank place holder image that is 512x1024, apply that to your object and in the upper right corner of the window set it to use the texture and it should change to the right dimensions.

But now I'm having this weird glitch. When I scale my UV's it immediately undos it... = /
Edit: Just closed and re-opened Max. It's all good now, will update this thread with the result of the new UV pack soon. Thank you!

unstoppablex

go to the preferences in the unwrap window, there you can change it

Scizz

Yeah, there's a glitch where when ever you offset something, from that point on if you scale your UV's it'll undo the scale instantly.

Scizz

:poly118: Well, no matter what I do, I always end up getting the same result....



I'm using a high res texture off CG Texture's Website. Here is my Mesh with a checkered pattern on it.


The texel density isn't that bad is it?

unstoppablex

To fully use all the UV space try to lay it out as i have it below. Also remember your camera is 2 feet away from that object, you will see blurriness from that close, preview it from about 8-10 feet away to decide if it is still too low detail.

Scizz wrote: »

Yeah, there's a glitch where when ever you offset something, from that point on if you scale your UV's it'll undo the scale instantly.

I have seen that before, not exactly with using 2:1 ratio textures but just in general. if you get that problem again try using freeform scale and hold down control so its uniform scaled.

Scizz

Well, this is how I packed my UV's
And this is the result...
I just don't get it, it just looks so bad. Here's a checkered pattern.

ZacD

Why does everything need to be unique? I'd just have it tile ~3 times along the front.

Scizz

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean? Are you referring to the UV's. There will be distortion in the texture if I change the seams. = /

sprunghunt

ZacD wrote: »

Why does everything need to be unique? I'd just have it tile ~3 times along the front.

Yes when I first saw this object I thought it was something the size of a dining table or a door.

For something that large I'd definitely make it out of smaller repeating bits of textures. Not necessarily tiling - but repeated for sure.

Scizz

I am.
Step 1.
Step 2.
Step 3.
Step 4.

Should I make it even smaller?

Mark Dygert

Tile it in max/maya not in photoshop. You can stack UV's of similar section on top of each other in the UV editor.

The quick way to do this, is to run symmetry twice on your object and flip the gizmo however you need it. This will copy the geometry from one side (including the UV's) to the other.

Or copy one mesh piece that is textured, and clone/snap the geometry where you it's needed to fill out the rest of the object, then weld it all together.

Before running symmetry you might want to recenter your pivot point, (Hierarchy tab > Affect Pivot Only > Center To Object).