Pelt Mapping! How is it?

Brandon · Jun 2007

Okay, I've been learning to do UV mapping and Ihave seen the 3ds Max 8 feature video on it...

How well does it work?

And also, when you do that rotating the pull points (in the video) when editing the UVs created, how do you know how much to rotate it?

Neox · Jun 2007

peltmapping is great for organic stuff together with relax it takes shitload of work off me, in my beginnings i used to unwrap a character in half a day or even a day, now i do it in maximum one hour.
with the rotating... who cares? in the end you can rotate it a smuch as you want, but normally you see connections between the effectors and the uv vertices so you should see what is up and what is down...

thomasp · Jun 2007

for me it works on some models, on others it's a joke, with some geometry it just gives weird/unbalanced results no matter what. actually i prefer the freeware LSCM unwrap plugin for max that was posted in these forums or roadkill for maya for this task, the algorithm they use often seemed to give somewhat better results.

these are no magic "uv everything nicely" buttons, it's good to be able to do it yourself the manual way. also, while peltmapping can give you nicely unfolded uv's, that layout might be totally weird to paint on, forcing you to settle for a middle ground. on complex assets you'll want to use a combination of manual and automatic methods anyway.

for pain-free uv'ing, also look into the projection modifier, the relax-tool, the possibility of modifing your mesh before applying uv's and then morphing it back into it's old shape and the render-to-texture functions that are great for uving something so that it's easy to paint and then transferring that texture paintjob to a more efficient uv-layout later on.

Jay Evans · Jun 2007

its ass, use roadkill or UVHelp.

just my opinion, I'm sure it works great for some people.

Mark Dygert · Jun 2007

Works great for me.

Common problems with pelt mapping:
- Failing to get the gizmo to face the right way. If the align gizmo is facing the opposite direction it will attempt to unfold the mesh backwards, making a mess. To get around this issue I find using the "align to view" button works great.

- The default spring cage is almost always too small and needs to be scaled up 200-300% before simulating a pelt pull.

- People fail to plot their seams correctly. People assume that it will do complex shapes like hands/finger or around curves perfectly and get frustrated when it doesn't automatically unwrap everything perfectly.

- Lack of use leads to "this is crap I'm never using it again". People often try it once on a really complex model and fail to get the results they want. Start out on something simple just to learn.

Hito · Jun 2007

I get better results with UVHelp, assuming same mesh and same seams at the end.

The results are okay with pelt mapping, but seems I can never get rid of the distortion completely, there's always a slight zigsag in the checker pattern no matter what I do. Relaxing afterwards makes everything even worse: more distortion and overlapping faces and the like.

Mark Dygert · Jun 2007

[ QUOTE ]
I get better results with UVHelp, assuming same mesh and same seams at the end.

The results are okay with pelt mapping, but seems I can never get rid of the distortion completely, there's always a slight zigsag in the checker pattern no matter what I do. Relaxing afterwards makes everything even worse: more distortion and overlapping faces and the like.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try flipping the piece and then relaxing. believe it or not your UV piece has a front and a back, if the back is facing forward and you try to relax it will try to flip it while it relaxes, making a mess. So for some pieces you might need to flip, relax and flip it back the way you want it.

Also try the other relax options and don't forget you can select a few verts and relax just those. There is no sense in screwing up the whole thing if you need to relax just a few places.

MoP · Jun 2007

I find using Soft Selection with Relax in trouble spots works really well too. Haven't needed UVHelp since Max7.

SuperOstrich · Jun 2007

I was a big Unfold3D fan, but lately I've found breaking seams in the UV editor and using relax have been almost as good.

CrazyButcher · Jun 2007

shameless plug
the mentioned LSCM plugin can be found here:
http://luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmax

Disc Nr · Aug 2007

[ QUOTE ]
shameless plug
the mentioned LSCM plugin can be found here:
http://luxinia.de/index.php/ArtTools/3dsmax

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi

i have problem with your LSCM plugin, becouse i have msvcr71.dll into my 3dsmax directory but it don't work fine and said dll failed to initialize, my 3ds max relase are 7.0, if you can hlp me

Thank's a lot

Disc

CrazyButcher · Aug 2007

make sure you have the proper plugin-file installed. LSCMUnwrap_6to8.gup and not any of the other versions. If that still fails I sadly cannot help (don't have max6&7 to debug). The plugin was compiled against max6 sdk, so in theory it should work fine (at least does under 8).

Sage · Aug 2007

Crazybutcher's plugin is great and in my opinion is how the damn pelt mapping function should work. Period. non of that shit of having to rotate anything. Waste of time. I love how Pelt lets you specify seams, but then instead of just unfolding like say chiliskinner would, it would break your mesh along the seams you specified it does, Pelt goes and does this pulling crap into a circle. Yeah you can straighten the control points to whatever shape you want, but why? Waste of time. After taking the time to specify seams they want you to play with the damn circle, whoever thought that up should be beaten with a stick. Max has an unfold function already, it would have been nice and efficient if it respected the seams you specify with Pelt and then runs a relax for you to match your geometry.

Hey Vig can you give a few pointers on how you use the pelt? I have tried to get the thing to unwrap something as simple as a cube and it gives shitty results.

Alex

j_bradford · Aug 2007

For Maya and XSI folks you can try out the free plugin, roadkill; it works great for my needs. http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

There is a MAX version as well.

Mark Dygert · Aug 2007

Sage I hear ya pelt mapping can be a bitch sometimes, you kind of have to pick your battles and mess around with it enough to know when it isn't going to be the fastest and best option to choose. With cubes you're better off using another method to unwrap, unless you plot out your cuts very carefully as if it was made out of paper. If you really want to use pelt on a box, you end up plotting seams on every edge except 4, kind of like this. 99.99% of the time it will turn a cube into an ugly mess and you end up trying to straighten out the lines. Pelt mapping works better on cylinders, spheres and organic shapes.

The most common problems I see are;
- People expect too much from it and they fail to plot seams correctly. They plot a tiny seam down the back/torso of the character and expect pelt to unwrap the arms and legs perfectly. Instead of breaking up a model like they would normally.
- People fail to see the importance of aligning the planar gizmo before pulling.
- People don't realize their piece is inside out and pull anyway, resulting in the pelt stretcher trying to flip the piece over while it pulls. Then they keep pulling because eventually it flips and flattens out, but then they relax and it tried to flip it back over. Then much crying about how pelt f'ed up.

I really really wish they would let you save out different stretcher frames. Also most of the time I scale up the stretcher 200% before the first pull. If the stretcher is too small it smashes things that get close to it if you continue to pull.

Some times like with a hand if you pull it once and see what springs the fingers are pointing at you can quickly select those springs and move them all out at the same time using the scale tool. It will keep the hand from becoming a circle-mess, stubby smashed fingers, and large stretched palm.

No tool is perfect and pelt could use some new features, but its nice to have in addition to the other tools in the unwrapping shed.

Pedro Amorim · Aug 2007

one word... UNFOLD3D

best program ever!

Sage · Aug 2007

Vig I kind of understand the concept of the seams, my problem is with the how they implemented pelt. I say I kind of understand cause I don't feel I'm great at unwrapping in general, but that said, apps like chilliskinner more or less worked on the same concept of plotting seams. It's a cool little script written around the time of Quake 3 Arena came out and the infamous method of have to clone your model and detaching all the faces into planar chuncks was done manually. Vig I'm sure you have done this at this point, hell sometimes I do it cause there is less clicking involved on certain models and don't feel like dealing with the Max unwrapper. I have tried pelt on several things but the big turn off are the damn springs. Usually on cube like things when it unfolds it comes out bendy, like imagine when you hit unfold on a cube it lays it out as expected, unless it loses the vert, lays it out like a flat t. With pelt it comes out like a bended mess of a t, and that's usually after applying relax with edges and faces to see if it's straightens out. Crazybutchers plugin works as expected and you know you screwed up when you didn't specify a seam or added one by mistake. The seam plotting on pelt works great, it's quick, but the damn springs part just pisses me off too much, cause there is no need for it. Just like when they now force you to be in face mode to flatten things. Like I said, whoever came up with that idea should be beaten.

Alex

arshlevon · Aug 2007

i have used unfold3d, max, maya, silo, modo, and uvlayout.. all are okay, out of the above i say uvlayout from headus is the best.. but Roadkill in my opinion trumps them all, and its free and open source.. if you work at a studio with good tools programmers you can even extend the functionality of the program and add features you request, i do this all the time.

Noren · Aug 2007

"The seam plotting on pelt works great, it's quick, but the damn springs part just pisses me off too much, cause there is no need for it. "

Then just use the seams, break them and then relax. Nobody forces you to deal with the spring part. It's just one of several options, take what you like and leave the rest.

mvelasquez · Aug 2007

Oh wow, thanks for the roadkill link, this thing is pretty cool

I've never found a use for pelt mapping. The relax by faces tool was all i ever needed. For the really messy jobs I would use relax by center to get everything spread out then a relax by face to clean up. Never had a problem with it.

Sage · Aug 2007

[ QUOTE ]
"The seam plotting on pelt works great, it's quick, but the damn springs part just pisses me off too much, cause there is no need for it. "

Then just use the seams, break them and then relax. Nobody forces you to deal with the spring part. It's just one of several options, take what you like and leave the rest.

[/ QUOTE ]

Noren can you elaborate? I was under the impression it was an all or nothing deal with Pelt mapping in max. Thanks.

Alex

Noren · Aug 2007

Hi,

basically you set your seams as usual, hit "simulate pelt pulling" once to break the seams and then exit the pelt-tool to continue like mvelasquez described. I usually don't even bother with the peltseams, just map everthing as a "solid" mesh without seams as a start and then break edges and relax.

Sage · Aug 2007

Thanks Noren, for explaining, mvelasquez thanks for the tip on relax.

Alex

Pelt Mapping! How is it?

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