Seeing a alternative to UVing in Maya

Steve Schulze · Jan 2012

I've been having issues with Maya's UV texture editor for some time. As I mentioned elsewhere, selecting UVs, edges, faces or whatever else in the viewer takes upwards of five seconds and frequently longer. This is on a clean mesh - any mesh, imported freshly into a new scene. No history, no texture, no reason to slow things down. I've tried everything I can think of up to and including going through a bunch of different graphics card drivers and upgrading to an entirely new version of Maya (2011 to 2012). Nothing seems to have any effect. I've hunted about on the internet extensively but have only come across one other problem suffering a similar problem with no solution. Autodesk aren't any help because I'm using a gaming graphics card instead of one of the expensive, fancy pants workstation ones.

So long story short, I'm ready to chalk this up as some kind of irredeemable hardware conflict (Radeon cards are notoriously finicky with Maya) and look for something else to UV with. I'd be interested to hear of any suggestions for UV mapping apps - I don't really want to have to install an entirely new package just for one aspect of modelling.

Alternatively if you've got any suggestions on how to make Maya function the way it's supposed to I'd be ever so grateful.

Snowfly · Jan 2012

Try starting with Roadkill for a pure LCSM workflow. If that's too basic you could try Blender.
http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

On the upper end, Unfold3D is very nice, but might be overkill for your needs.
http://www.polygonal-design.fr/e_unfold/

pasha_sevez · Jan 2012

The best unwraping software ever created. UVLayout.
http://www.uvlayout.com/
Has few scripts for tight interaction with maya.

Steve Schulze · Jan 2012

How are these for actual laying out of UVs? I use Roadkill for pelt mapping, but it's not really suitable for manipulating and arranging the UV islands.

Snowfly · Jan 2012

Unfold3D's got move, translate and scale, and some nice auto packing features as well. Grab the demo version. Obviously Blender's got those too, not sure if you're one of the types who'd rather drop some cash on a commercial product before wrestling with Blender's UI.

claydough · Jan 2012

Headus UV layout. I keep trying other alternatives but I always return to UVlayout.

r_fletch_r · Jan 2012

claydough wrote: »

Headus UV layout. I keep trying other alternatives but I always return to UVlayout.

QFT
Headus is fantastic, development is a little slow but the feature set if already the best out there. plus if you make good suggestions Phil (the lead programmer) also tends to be very open to suggestions.

oglu · Jan 2012

i also recommend headus uvlayout... best out there...

MeintevdS · Jan 2012

Headus Layout has always looked awesome and tempting. Out of curiosity, does it have a feature that lets you seamlessly work together with maya/max? (like GoZ in Zbrush)

r_fletch_r · Jan 2012

MeintevdS wrote: »

Headus Layout has always looked awesome and tempting. Out of curiosity, does it have a feature that lets you seamlessly work together with maya/max? (like GoZ in Zbrush)

yup. There are user written scripts for Max and Maya.

MeintevdS · Jan 2012

Awesome, that makes it even more tempting to buy.
Thanks.

Steve Schulze · Jan 2012

I was always a little turned off by the fact that Headus looks like a program written in Visual BASIC for Windows 3.11, but I suppose if does the job, it doesn't need to look pretty.

EDIT: Alright, bit the bullet and picked up Headus. It kinda reminds me of ZBrush in that insane genius not-making-any-concessions-to-convention style of design. It's pretty swish once you get a few tutorials done and start to understand just what it's all about.

Thanks for the help, guys.

Seeing a alternative to UVing in Maya

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