Beginner problem in Maya 2011 ( uv editor)

jimpaw · Jan 2011

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.

Bal · Jan 2011

There is Roadkill for maya, there's a little bridge mel that comes with it that works fine.
http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

jimpaw · Jan 2011

with maya 2011 ?

Warheart · Jan 2011

There is also this: http://www.castorlee.com/maya-tools/auto-uv-mapper

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.

Bal · Jan 2011

jimpaw wrote: »

with maya 2011 ?

Yes.

Warheart, that script looks nice, will give it a try at work tomorrow.

malcolm · Jan 2011

In Maya 2010 and upwards you have unfold and smooth uv's which are essentially trying to do what road kill does. Smooth uv's isn't quite as good as road kill's algorithm but it's pretty good unless your workflow relies on that magical pinning thing they have in road kill. If you're just looking for a pelt mapper thing than smooth uv's should do the trick. Also if you're a character guy you might want to check out Diamant Uv. It's a custom unwrapping tool the lead character artis from Uncharted 2 wrote, looks pretty amazing but I'm an environment guy so I've never needed that type of control. Link below watch the videos.

http://tools3d.com/news.php

jimpaw · Jan 2011

Warheart wrote: »

There is also this: http://www.castorlee.com/maya-tools/auto-uv-mapper

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.

Thanks warheart that scripts looks really helpful !! , thanks alot bro !

jimpaw · Jan 2011

Bal wrote: »

Yes.

Warheart, that script looks nice, will give it a try at work tomorrow.

thank you for the answer bal.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

malcolm wrote: »

In Maya 2010 and upwards you have unfold and smooth uv's which are essentially trying to do what road kill does. Smooth uv's isn't quite as good as road kill's algorithm but it's pretty good unless your workflow relies on that magical pinning thing they have in road kill. If you're just looking for a pelt mapper thing than smooth uv's should do the trick. Also if you're a character guy you might want to check out Diamant Uv. It's a custom unwrapping tool the lead character artis from Uncharted 2 wrote, looks pretty amazing but I'm an environment guy so I've never needed that type of control. Link below watch the videos.

http://tools3d.com/news.php

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.

malcolm · Jan 2011

Maybe describe the workflow you used to do and some suggestions can be made as to what the equivalent is in Maya.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

malcolm wrote: »

Maybe describe the workflow you used to do and some suggestions can be made as to what the equivalent is in Maya.

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 !

MikeF · Jan 2011

1- select the vert you want to snap, hold V and middle mouse click the destnation vertex
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

jimpaw · Jan 2011

thanks alot man.

MikeF · Jan 2011

no problem. Another tool that is really handy esspecially for environmental uv work is the alight tools in the uv editor, they can help straighten out your edges really quickly. Also, if you want to align anything within the viewport, first select the vertex to align, then left click which axis you want to align on the move manipulator in the viewport, then middle mouse click the destination vertex. I wish i would have known about that one little trick when i started hard surface stuff, would have saved a lot of time during my first couple years working with maya heheheh

jimpaw · Jan 2011

i just pray to god that textools comes to maya this uv editor is a piece of shit.

McBradd · Jan 2011

I made the switch from Max to Maya a while back, and getting down an efficient UV'ing workflow was one of the sore spots. After a lot of tweaking things are working nicely.

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.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

McBradd wrote: »

I made the switch from Max to Maya a while back, and getting down an efficient UV'ing workflow was one of the sore spots. After a lot of tweaking things are working nicely.

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.

PredatorGSR · Jan 2011

Really? I had the opposite reaction coming from maya to max. The only way max's uv editor was usable at all was by installing textools and using some custom max scripts. Maya can do most of those actions by default instead of needing a 3rd party plugin.

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.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

PredatorGSR wrote: »

Really? I had the opposite reaction coming from maya to max. The only way max's uv editor was usable at all was by installing textools and using some custom max scripts. Maya can do most of those actions by default instead of needing a 3rd party plugin.

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 ?

malcolm · Jan 2011

Maya only works when you have uv's selected to move them in the uv editor, you can select uv's in the 3d view or the 2d view, if you select a face in the uv editor it hides all the unselected faces, pretty useless feature but that's the way Maya works. If you want to select faces in the 3d view you can do your selection there and then in the uv window convert your selection to uv's by holding ctr + rmb and dragging to convert to uv's. If you want to snap a selection of faces to another selection of faces you need to first turn on retain component selection in the move tool and then with your uv's selected hold down the d key and middle mouse drag the pivot point to where you want it, then release the d key and hold the v key and middle mouse drag you will see the group of faces snap to the closest uv so just drag around until it snaps where you want it, unfortunately if you switch out of the move tool you lose that custom pivot you just set and will need to snap the pivot again.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

Thanks alot malcolm, actually i know the basics,but man mayas uv is a pain in the as, the is that i want work within maya and not export to uv in other programs. but thanks for explaining. is it okay if i ask some other questions about maya ?

malcolm · Jan 2011

Sure thing man ask more questions that's what this forum's for. I haven't found any 3rd party app to be better than the Maya default tools for environment work, but keep in mind I also have a couple scripts on my shelf I use for uv work. Let me know if you find something you like that you end up using. One thing extremely retarded about Maya is your component type does not carry over into the uv editor, so if you select some uv's in the 3d view then go to the uv editor you will see them selected but you can't actually move them until you switch to uv mode in the editor.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

malcolm wrote: »

Sure thing man ask more questions that's what this forum's for. I haven't found any 3rd party app to be better than the Maya default tools for environment work, but keep in mind I also have a couple scripts on my shelf I use for uv work. Let me know if you find something you like that you end up using. One thing extremely retarded about Maya is your component type does not carry over into the uv editor, so if you select some uv's in the 3d view then go to the uv editor you will see them selected but you can't actually move them until you switch to uv mode in the editor.

awsome man,thanks, what kind of scripts/plugins do you use ?

malcolm · Jan 2011

move and sew uv shells and match scale of target to source

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.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

what does the strip command do ?

malcolm · Jan 2011

I select a group of faces and it maps thouse into a uniform grid of polygon faces, only works on quads, it's useful if you want to map a wavy shape into a perfect grid of uv's, it does not retain height/width ratio so you'd need to unfold it with a constraint if you want that.

m4dcow · Jan 2011

I swear by KAM Mapper
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

malcolm · Jan 2011

SDV_xformUV is a must for uv's in maya.

jimpaw · Jan 2011

m4dcow wrote: »

I swear by KAM Mapper
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 !

Beginner problem in Maya 2011 ( uv editor)

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