Request: Critique my UVW work
Hello all,
I'm new to this and right now I'm in the uvw stage. It's really taking longer than I thought. I am not sure if I am doing everything correctly and would like people's advice and critique. Images provided.
Also, I would like to know if my uvw map is okay so far. I am particularly having trouble on the head. There are a bit of stretch marks around the lower jaw area and on the side and top of the head. Do I need to totally eliminate them or these minor stretch marks will be unnoticeable?
Thanks in advance,
Ray
I'm new to this and right now I'm in the uvw stage. It's really taking longer than I thought. I am not sure if I am doing everything correctly and would like people's advice and critique. Images provided.
Also, I would like to know if my uvw map is okay so far. I am particularly having trouble on the head. There are a bit of stretch marks around the lower jaw area and on the side and top of the head. Do I need to totally eliminate them or these minor stretch marks will be unnoticeable?
Thanks in advance,
Ray
Replies
From what I can see here you have a LOT of unused uv space. You can scale all those unwraps really and try to take up as much room as possible in that uv space.
Also you can overlap a lot of uv maps. like arms, legs, or hands depending on if they are unique or not. same for the face you could overlap half onto the other though I wouldn't recommend it since you probabbly want to get a good uneaven face going.
For torsos, I would suggest unwrapping it with a cylindrical unwrap and then sitting there for ever tweaking the uvs. You'll be happy you did because if you say box map the torso or something then you will have seems all over the torso.
Unwrapping is not fun and it takes for ever until you get the hang of it. A lot of streatching problems that occur are just uvs that need to be moved around a little util they look right. So I hope some of this helped and just take soem time to sit there and move stuff around until it looks right and weld any seems you can together to get rid of as many seems as you can.
Hope this helped some how... : /
I tried using the other mapping features like Cylindrical unwrap but all the option I had available was Planar unwrap or something like that. So all this time my process has been selecting the areas or planes manually and then clicking palanar unwrap.
Would you or anyone by chance know how I can have access to the rest of the unwrap option?
What you want to do if not mentioned already it use all your unwrap space to the best of your restraints, such as 512 or 1024. Secondly you have to space out everything to just the right amount or enough to put just the right amount of texturing/paint on it.
I've just learned you have to space important parts out one that will be more predominantly noticeable and attractive such as the face because it's usually the first thing anyone looks at.
So I hope these little tid bits helped and the image describes how to compact everything nicely. Also it's like a puzzle which you might find annoying but usually enjoyable depends who you are I guess. Like today I could have gotten angry and given up on the UV's for a model I completed but I thought why bother just do it right and get it over with. I have to puzzle piece it together like 4 to 5 times before it actually worked out in my favor. So it's basically trial and error for the piecing together parts.
BTW, here's a better checker map pattern I just love, I forget who made it but damn good job to the creator
I think it's much better than the default checkered pattern.
EDIT:
About the cylindrycal mapping should be selectable along with a list of others, your in edit mesh or edit poly? Try using it under one of these. Or snap a pic of it if it's grey'd out. I never heard of that before.
A great tool to reduce stretching is Relax. It may take some getting used to before it works perfectly for you, but it's one of the best along with stitching.
Speaking of stitching Uvs, try to reduce all the seams you can without stretching the Uvs to much (stretching is what you want to get rid of). For example, it looks like the front and back of the arm in the upper left. I would stitch those UVs leaving a single seam along the inside of the arm (the least visible part). It appears that the front, side and back of the chest are all split up too. These could easily be attached and seamless.
For reducing wasted space (any area that's not the character texture), try to pull all the pieces as closely together (without overlapping) as possible. It also worth it to give a little padding (a few pixels between different pieces so they don't blend together when filtered and/or mipped). I think of this process a lot like Tetris or a jigsaw puzzle.
It's UVhelp, a working relax function for max, that will even out your texel density on your UV chunks.
Second, watch the UV tutorial on my website, either for Funge, or Delilah. www.poopinmymouth.com To see how I handle UVs. The Green guy (funge) goes more into the body layout, but substitute UVhelp and unfold 3d magic for the program I use in the video (deep uv). Delilah UV video goes more into hard surface UVs, but still shows how I go about relaxing and arranging them.
You'll find after you do the texture for this, what areas you like and dislike in terms of UVs, and keep that in mind for your next face. It's all a constant learning process.
Back to you on using other tools available in "Unwrap UVW", all I have is "Select Face" in the subcategory. I've seen others have more options like Cylindrical, Box, etc. in the list. I have no idea how to have those other unwrap features accessible so I don't have to select a group of planes individually just to map. Here is a screen shot:
3dsMax has a relax feature. Is that the same as the ones you use in your tutorial? I don't know how to use DeepUV or Max's built in Relax feature. I'm not sure but it appears DeepUV is now a standalone program and I don't know how to work set it up and it inside Max like you have in the tutorial. I am going to try UVHelp now and see which ones I like.
Thanks so much for your tutorials they've been very helpful to me. I watched your Funge tutorials.
Just one problem: Using it to tidy up mirroring areas that I have already overlapped, it seems to tidey them up differently. What do I do from here when UVhelp has placed them differently?
Attached is an image of the problem:
Unwrap UVW is the main modifier for editing Uvs, but before you get to that, UVW Map is another modifier that gives you more options to get started with (planar, cylindrical, box, face, etc). Not sure if you're skipping that or not, but if so, it can be the place to start your Uvs. Where you're at now, this step doesn't really matter. Just soemthing to remember next time.
Secondly, see how your Unwrap modifier has those little dots to the right of it? That means you're still in Vertex mode in Editable Poly. You don't want that. Vert, edge, border, polygon or element, being in any of these modes can negatively affect your work, often causing you to lose it. Be sure to click out of any modes (so there's no little symbol to the right of Editable Poly) before applying a UV modifier or any for that matter. Unless you're specifically working on an area, then be sure to collapse your stack.
It can also be helpful to Reset Xforms (under Utilities) before UV mapping because features can be altered by leftover scaling, rotating, etc. adjustments.
Usually if you're unwrapping a mirrored mesh though, it's faster to do what Psyk0 said, just unwrap one side, then mirror the mesh, provided the geometry is identical on both sides.
Or you could just delete one half of the model, and mirror the mesh in that area, to make it perfectly identical, this would probably be the fastest method.
those tools are like a message from above. The alignment options / buttons are probably get the most use from me, but as a whole it has some very handy features that may help you out. When overlapping areas there is a UV align option that works wonders on individual verts. Just be sure to not get your stretching right first, as it will generally move the verts.
One thing that i do when uv'ing is to focus on general mappings for each piece, with very little regard to actual layout. Once the pieces are broken up (as you have now), i go in and meticulously labor over each chunk, making each have the most minimal distortion. I use 6 types of UV Test textures:
text
- i use this to test consistency, stretching, and accidentally mirrored areas
- when you can read the article on your model, its good.
- also lets you focus on details. is the "a" in that sentence larger than the g and e? fix!
hand-made checker
- cleaner than default checker. Also works well scaled, and aliased. supa-clean!
pior's awesome circlecheck
- it is a thing of pure beauty
noisy checker w/ guide
- when scaled down you can test the consistnecy of detail and flow of UV's to the surface with the red and blue guides.
randomness
- no real purpose other than being randomness. Helps simulate a real texture at times. i use this one the least
When uv'ing i continually swap these 6 out while working, and when testing and or finalizing an area.
Another thing to think of, or try would be to uv in smaller chunks and stitch things together later. For me, it is sometimes easier to get a smaller section perfect then merge things together and make minor adjustments. I try not to rely on relax scripts or deepUV (since i dont have it
When you go to lay out your map, be sure to maximize texture space per uv'ed section, and minimize the space that does not have a polygon on it. If you have to rotate pieces you can. I suggest keeping things at 90 degree angles when possible for ease of your texturing later!
hope this helps some, and i didnt ramble you to death.
Advice:
- You have a lot of wasted space. Every pixel of wasted space earns you 1 year in artist hell. You can't get away from wasted space and you can only minimize it. Yes you will see me in artist hell but hopefully we'll both get out before some of the other schomes that don't understand how to minimize wasted space. Remember every pixel of a texture is loaded into memory but if you only use 25% of those pixels your killing your product.
- If you are using pixel snap and find its not working, apply any image file to your model. The max checker pattern is generated procedurally and contains ZERO pixels to snap to and makes pixel snap worthless. This is another reason to use one of the provided UV help textures people have listed.
- Don't be afraid to cause stretching if it will mean you can paint a straight lines where it counts instead of a horrible jagged line on a perfect non stretching UV piece. If you don't notice the stretching and the line is crisp who is it hurting?
If none of this makes sense come visit this post a few models from now. Looking good, I think you're on the right track
I've finally finished uvmapping. It was brutal! Now my question is about the smoothing groups. I have smoothing groups applied all over my model. Notice the face and especially the eyebrow bridge area has detail because of the different smooth groups I applied on it. Should I remove this? Will it get in the way with my texturing because it appears to be so obvious as it is?
Please continue to crit and advice,
My uv map placement:
Smoothing Group on face:
My modifier stack so far is:
Symmetry
Unwrap UVW
Editable Poly
Alex
http://www.zshare.net/video/tut-wmv.html
your welcome btw, though the creator gets all the credit for the numbered checkered pattern!
As a side note that pattern is also handy if those areas that are not mirrored and are facing the wrong way can be fixed easily by clicking one of the mirror icons in the editor.
after jamming everything together you should take a look at the layout before texturing and ask yourself some questions. Do you really want the face to be up-sidedown? Is the arm at that angle going to be a pain in the ass? where did the neck go? etc...
i used to go through one or two iterations before finalizing something, and find myself doing that still occasionally.
Would it work to turn the uv map page in the angle that I need it when I'm colouring it and then return it to how it was when done?
Hmmm I recall reading somewhere from this site that I need to make as much lines go horizontal and vertical as much as possible to give a more crisper texture.
Can anyone upload an example of their uv map arrangmentz please?
Thanks in advance