3DS Max (below 2012) - Relax/Unwrap solution?
polycounter lvl 12
Hey to all,
OK, here is the gist of the issue, I'm unwrapping a model which is very much organic, complex and I'm pulling my hair out because Max has one of the slowest and most atrocious speeds when it comes to 'relaxing' an unwrap.
Example of what I mean:
I unwrap the mouth of my character, the inner cheeks, upper and lower mouth, the mouth is simple enough, low poly and all, with a simple planer mapping, at this point, I run Relax so that the unwrap extendeds itself out so it can be all nice looking and clean (please note that at this point, the unwrap should look like a 5 sided box or a really blocking looking bird, keyword here is it SHOULD).
Instead, parts of the unwrap keep on spinning, or taking ages before they get into place, heck I one point I just decided to planar the upper moth and half way on the cheeks, and Max still keeps on spinning the cheeks for about half a year before it realized they need to be put in a bird like fashion, which I thought would be common sense as far as Math goes.
And yes, I pumped up all of my settings to high values for relax, but Max is still slow in relaxing (it's doesn't lag, just slow in applying the math).
It gets worse, I literally just now saw Max spin the edges of a, and almost, flat rock model for 10 seconds, instead of laying it our like a piece of paper, before I stopped it, manually spread and relaxed sections of the model before it could relax it naturally altogether.
Anyone has tips or advice on what I can do about this? And yes, I'm using the earlier versions of Max, so I don't have access to fancy stuff like in 2012 Peel, etc.
EDIT: The Temporary solution to this I found was using TexTools alongside Roadkill, basically define your cuts, send to RK via TT using ABF unwrap then run relax and it should sort itself out OK. However, the major draw back is that your mesh becomes a triangle mess once it comes back from RK.
OK, here is the gist of the issue, I'm unwrapping a model which is very much organic, complex and I'm pulling my hair out because Max has one of the slowest and most atrocious speeds when it comes to 'relaxing' an unwrap.
Example of what I mean:
I unwrap the mouth of my character, the inner cheeks, upper and lower mouth, the mouth is simple enough, low poly and all, with a simple planer mapping, at this point, I run Relax so that the unwrap extendeds itself out so it can be all nice looking and clean (please note that at this point, the unwrap should look like a 5 sided box or a really blocking looking bird, keyword here is it SHOULD).
Instead, parts of the unwrap keep on spinning, or taking ages before they get into place, heck I one point I just decided to planar the upper moth and half way on the cheeks, and Max still keeps on spinning the cheeks for about half a year before it realized they need to be put in a bird like fashion, which I thought would be common sense as far as Math goes.
And yes, I pumped up all of my settings to high values for relax, but Max is still slow in relaxing (it's doesn't lag, just slow in applying the math).
It gets worse, I literally just now saw Max spin the edges of a, and almost, flat rock model for 10 seconds, instead of laying it our like a piece of paper, before I stopped it, manually spread and relaxed sections of the model before it could relax it naturally altogether.
Anyone has tips or advice on what I can do about this? And yes, I'm using the earlier versions of Max, so I don't have access to fancy stuff like in 2012 Peel, etc.
EDIT: The Temporary solution to this I found was using TexTools alongside Roadkill, basically define your cuts, send to RK via TT using ABF unwrap then run relax and it should sort itself out OK. However, the major draw back is that your mesh becomes a triangle mess once it comes back from RK.
Replies
Select object, hit tab to go into edit mode
Ctrl tab, select edges mode
Shift and right click to select edges
Ctrl-E, mark seam
Ctrl tab, select faces mode
A to select all
U, unwrap
It doesn't always work, but most of the time (>95%) it does a perfect job and for rounded/organic surfaces it is SO damn fast. No delay at all except on complex meshes but certainly no waiting for a brute force algorithm to iterate 40000 times.
It might not be entirely practical to throw another tool into the mix, but the techniques for doing this instantly exist, Autodesk just aren't implementing them.
Well, guess I have to suck it up or use Blender...
In my second example, I literally did a simple planar on an almost flat object (it's was little arched and mushy, but still fairly simple) and simple planar would have been enough, but I wanted to make sure there weren't any bits and bobs stretching.
Run relax, and relax pretty much starts spinning the edges on itself for no reason, while very slowly 'relaxing' the rest of the mesh, even on higher settings. I have to struggle between Edge/Face, wait a long time and/or doing lots of manual work for something which is essentially a piece of paper.