Unwrapping help???

[paulius-st]

service packs + hot fixes

.
and other issue is that you mesh is coroupted in some way - i had the same issue a few times and detatching as a clone solved it

[dantrodgers]

Sorry for the constant questions, I have been reading and watching videos about unwrapping for the past few days but I am unsure whether what I have done is right and if/how it should be changed.

I have attached a few screen grabs of what I've done this morning and then rendered the uvw template. Any pointers would be great

cheers

[paulius-st]

checker looks ok, but i dont like these top parts of uv's (i painted them red). its better to make them round like the original shape. a wise use of flatten and quick peel makes miracles happen .

[dantrodgers]

this better then? Also i was wondering, because this shape is symmetrical, would I be better off cutting it in half, mapping it and then adding the symmetry modifier?? Would that help sort out the deforming on the back?

[poopipe]

This is where what you do gets a bit specific to your needs.

that big crescent shaped piece is going to give you trouble if you use photosourced or handpainted textures because it's a weird shape (imagine trying to paint a grid onto it. It also wastes a shed load of texture space.

on the other hand, there's no distortion and you'll be able to bake to it perfectly happily


I work primarily on mobile engines so I'm always looking for ways to make the maximum use of resources so I would probably straighten that bit and work around the distortion - I'd do the same with the flat edges around the big circle bits.

look up thirding as a way of making your UVs more efficient - there's a rundown on poopinmymouth.com

I'd avoid mirroring for two reasons, one is the butterfly effect, the other is that you don't know whether your game engine is going to support mirrored normal maps or not

[dantrodgers]

Cheers. The aim is to paint some textures in PS for a final still image. I'll have a play around then and see what seems to work best.

[dantrodgers]

Does anyone know why I'm getting distortions after i turbosmooth at seams? its only happening at a few places and I haven't got a clue why

[poopipe]

check your mesh is seamless - that looks like unwelded verts/edges to me

[dantrodgers]

Originally Posted by poopipe

check your mesh is seamless - that looks like unwelded verts/edges to me

it is seamless, it only does it where the uvw seams are, and where there aren't many edge loops. Is there a way to stop the uvw from being smoothed by turbosmooth or meshsmooth?? I have tried checking the "old style mapping" option in meshsmooth but that doesn't work.

After trawling google and multiple forums I read that this can happen in 3ds max when smoothing a low poly mesh after it has been unwrapped (but apparently this doesn't happen on most other software ). I found a way to stop the problem on CGSociety, but its pretty long winded. The process to correct the problem is:
Add edit poly modifier in between the unwrap and turbo/meshsmooth.
Select the edges that make up the seam where the problem is and split them.
The copy the map channel (under the utilities menu) and then paste it over itself.
Then delete the edit poly modifier, and the distortion disappears.

This seems to solve the problem but am i really going to have to do this over and over for any objects that have a low number of edge loops? It just seems like an unnecessary ball ache.

Another less effective solution is to add the edit poly modifier and then add edge loops on the affected seam, but this still gives some distortion albeit minimal.


EDIT: Got that slightly wrong, the problem happens with turbosmooth even after the method described above, to completely remove the distortion smoothing MUST be done with meshsmooth.

[TekNeek]

Have you tried putting a Vertex Weld modifier on top of it (under the TurboSmooth modifier though) and putting the disance into something really small like 0,001.

I often do this when there are some shading errors or something inexplicable happens, and most often, it works

Be careful though, that it doesn't alternate the mesh into some unwanted results.

[poopipe]

I think this is just illustrative of the fact that turbosmooth and meshsmooth aren't quite the same thing. turbo smooth being quicker as a result of not dealing with things like this.

it's possible it's a split UV edge or smoothing group boundary causing it I think