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[Blender Add-on] Smart UV Tool – Fast, Clean UVs for Dense Meshes

meshmind
meshmind
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meshmind
Hey everyone,
I’ve been working on UV unwrapping workflows in Blender, mainly for dense meshes and production assets, where clean island layout and minimal distortion actually matter.
Most automatic UV tools work fine for quick previews, but I kept running into issues on heavier meshes uneven island scaling, excessive stretching, and layouts that look acceptable at first but become a pain during texturing.
The focus here isn’t speed or “one-click magic,” but producing clean, usable UVs that hold up during texturing and iteration, especially on complex or dense geometry.
To support this workflow, I ended up building a small Blender add-on called Smart UV Tool that helps automate unwrap decisions while keeping distortion and cleanup under control.
Below is a demo video showing my tool helping me to unwrap

https://youtu.be/WUZIZ5AptU4?si=NDSydDz1WTWWAN3W

That said, I’m mainly posting to get feedback from others dealing with similar UV issues.
Curious how others here approach UV unwrapping for dense or hard-to-manage meshes, and what tools or techniques you rely on when default unwraps fall apart.
I’ve documented the setup and breakdown here for anyone curious about the approach: https://superhivemarket.com/products/smart-uv-tool
Appreciate any thoughts or experiences.
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  • meshmind
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    meshmind
    Hey Polycount,
    UV unwrapping can be a real pain on dense or hard-surface meshes  especially when you don’t want to destroy your existing seams or layout.I made Smart UV Tool to fix that. It gives you multiple unwrap methods, non-destructive temporary seams, stretch analysis with auto-fix, texel density control, and smart island tools all in one clean sidebar panel.
    Key Features:Multiple Unwrap Methods: Standard Angle-Based, Smart UV Project, and Project from ViewNon-Destructive Temporary Seams (creates seams for unwrapping then restores your originals)Stretch Analysis with color overlay + One-Click Auto-Fix (only relaxes bad islands)Professional Texel Density Control (consistent scaling across the model)Smart Island Tools: auto straightening, one-click packing, quick Align X/YProduction Utilities: one-click checker texture, export UV layout (PNG/SVG), highlight seamsClean interface in the N-panel (Smart UV tab)Perfect for game assets, hard-surface, archviz, or any production workflow where you need speed and control without babysitting UVs.Quick demo video: [https://youtu.be/dg-pyCJ7AIg?si=J4i_HY_RHlEn5C_s]
    Available now on Superhive (formerly Blender Market) https://superhivemarket.com/products/smart-uv-tool I Would love feedback from the Polycount crowd especially on how it handles game asset UVs. Have you tried it yet? Feel free to drop your results or questions here!
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  • sacboi
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    sacboi grand marshal polycounter
    Honest query! if it's... 


    so as a hard surface modeler, I'd also want to see this tool's functionality demo mechanical objects as well rather than just figurative UVW operations, your product page for this app currently displays?   
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  • Fabi_G
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    Fabi_G godlike master sticky
    Is that an AI-watermark on your marketing graphic. If so, I wonder what else is AI generated :lol:

    On Superhive it says the creator of this addon is 'Anvil Interactive Solutions', which reminds me of @anvilinteractive, who recently promoted addons by that creator too. Do you know each other?
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  • iam717
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    iam717 ngon master
    Fabi_G said:
    Is that an AI-watermark on your marketing graphic. If so, I wonder what else is AI generated :lol:

    On Superhive it says the creator of this addon is 'Anvil Interactive Solutions', which reminds me of @anvilinteractive, who recently promoted addons by that creator too. Do you know each other?

    This is the move some p.o.s. are doing over at blender, think of it as, you(anyone) get no money cause somehow everyone in the world seems to be siding with being or becoming broke as sites everywhere are allowing "these people" to flourish without repercussions, strange.

    The topic that points it out that the entire blender site including devs, mods has ignored:

    You know what this new "tool" does is just take everyone's "gifts" & tried to give it to the ones that never had any, nor would be given any... lol its pretty pathetic really, when you think about it.  //(its the equivalent of, baby does a thing gets rewarded, g.j. baby, neighbor sees baby, get rewards tried to do the same thing, fails, goes and steals babies thing and says look at what i did, attempts to get better reaction for the same item.)

    Bumped cause they released something else, & is claiming [probably by lying] that it isn't ai anything... crazy move.


    The kick in the nuts move & the one the proves i am right about you gaining no $ anymore is they release this shit FOR FREE, half the time, a'int that some shit, lmfao, blatantly & obvious, that i am right again.

    I hope at the very least someone somewhere asks, these people at blender, wtf is up with allowing this & siding with this.

    Is it because the same companies causing issues everywhere with software & hardware had "donated $", & now for some reason have access to the dev table to "probably influence" or add input to moves these "younglings" should be making?

    idk i see a connection here...
    //i am f-ing amazing!



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  • Noren
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    Noren interpolator
    @iam717: This is a bit off-topic, and maybe I'm missing something, but that thread seems to be about updating an incompatible installer (edit: or parts) of an already purchased plugin. A pretty menial task I generally expect developers to do for free (not too familiar with the blender ecosystem, though), but in this case, some cross-dependency seems to be involved as well, potentially leading to long delays for the user. So while we can argue about consent, control and liability issues, this seems like a comparably harmless case of users bringing their purchased software (edit: or assets) into working condition.

    Edit: Looking into it some more / reading again, this seems to be about a free plugin which is needed for the assets from the same company, which may not even mind that those assets can be used in a newer version before they get around to do the update themselves.
    So from what I can tell, this would mainly be a problem if you want to charge for updating a plugin to a new host software version without adding features, or if you take this as a precedent for something bigger.

    Edit 2: Thinking about it some more, the upload to an LLM without consent of the original author(s) might be the biggest issue, here. I don't think decompiling a plugin would be trivial (assuming it is compiled), but in theory, the data could be abused.
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  • iam717
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    iam717 ngon master
    @Norenyup, u got it, got to be short sry, ppl might have it out for me on p.c. now-a-days, it just a'int the same place.
    Otherwise yeah, you got it at the end there, now imagine that with all content and then across all "market places"... take it easy.  

    Edit: what you all are missing, is the part where they "generate their own version regardless" if they purchase any content or not... flooding the market with their replicated via the stolen libraries without purchasing a thing, there is the real issue, but i have to say it cause i doubt people will think that far anyway.

    Edit2:
    Which then means dead (if they wheren't to begin with) marketplaces everywhere, especially if they get the idea to release all contents for free .
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