3ds Max Unweap UVW - packing

Dox · May 2012

Hello, i cant find way how to pack many faces in to one place. Check image below. I want to select for example 30 faces and make some option that will pack them in one by other, i use this for optimalisation for ex. i use 30 wooden desks that use part of texture. Actually i was make that just by drag manually one by one face but it takes a lot of time if i have many faces. Maybe there is so plugin to this.

If someone have some idea i will be greatful.

|MM| · May 2012

Look in the 'Arrange Elements' toolbar or download textools.

Dox · May 2012

I know arrange elements but it gives you only possbile to pack faces on padding 0 very near, there is not any option for one face on another like on screen.

I will check textools.

Olli. · May 2012

why does your UV edit window look so colorful? what version of 3ds max do you use?

|MM| · May 2012

Ok, my bad I see what you mean now.
I don't think there's a tool for overlapping faces like that.

cptSwing · May 2012

Using textools, you can align shells to their respective sides - the gifs at "Align Selection" on his website do a much better job at explaining it

As much as I like the new features in Max2012's UV editor, there are still some things that textools does a lot better.

Once you've stacked your shells on top of each other, you can use Max's tools or Funky Bunny's UV squashing scripts to match them accurately.

If you have access to Softimage, it has a semi-automatic shell matching thingy, one of those functions I really miss (and have been planning to try my hand at scripting.. but no time..)

Dox · May 2012

@cptSwing
thank you guys textools are amazing they works great,
solution to my problem was align shells/verts in textools now i work much more faster

Butthair · May 2012

Without TexTools, I would grab all the elements and select specific verts for flat aligning. As they would share the same space, it's just a matter of getting them stacked correctly together, then adjust the final shape of the shell to fit the texture area.

Boxes and 90-degree shapes are faster as you can select multiple verts to flat align, but something like a circle or organic object becomes a bit more tedious to match perfectly. Having snaps on, set to pixels, can help as if you have a 512 res map you can easily 'align by eye' as verts snap.

If these are the same shape, I make it a habit to model as little as possible and duplicate from it, that way I spend less time in the UV window. If these are single faces needed to be stacked to represent the same surface, try using material ID's, therefore multiple texture files, or else have an area of the material, for instance a patch of metal, for all metal bits. At the end of the day, your working to create awesome art, not specifically to show how efficient you are in the UV editor.

Of course, this is just a simple man's opinion.

3ds Max Unweap UVW - packing

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