headus 3D tools

[invaderZim]

Hi, im a complete newbie to this program, however its a zillion times easier than 3dsmax so thank you! but im still only on the demo and i was wondering if you are able to export a flattened uv in the demo mode?

thanks

Lewis

[headus]

If you click on "Save" and give your file an OBJ extension (eg fish.obj) then the mesh will be saved out with new UVs.

Or do you mean actual flattened geometry? The "Pattern" tool does this, but its not currently available in the Demo or the included "no save" Professional trial version.

Phil

[desktopepics]

Hello....

Following up from the previous portion of this thread, I wanted a clearer explaination. Yes, InvaderZim is right .... this is a lot easier than 3DSMax.

But I'm as Newbie confused as ever.

Once I cut and flatten out the mesh and have my UV's ... and I'm happy with the niffty importer/exporter for 3dsmax script you guys posted by Knightly, BTW ... thanks so much ....

Bare with me and just answer what do i do with the newly UV'd mesh now that it's back in 3dsmax.

I tried it ... took it out of max, cut and flattened what i wanted ... ported it back to max (via Send) and I'm looking at exactly what i started with.

Could you help me understand what I should have been looking for? Do I have to do something in Max to address what i did from UVlayout?

This question takes you pros back to basics, and I'm sorry, but UV laying out has always been a curse to me ESPECIALLY when we had to to pull and stretch things in a box that I never understood.

I just need to know what's next after it's back in Max.

Thanks so very much.

[headus]

Sorry, I've never use Max so cant help you with specifics of that application, but generally speaking, UVLayout isn't doing anything to the geometry/shape, so when your mesh is loaded back into Max its supposed to look exactly like it started out. Whats changed hopefully are the texture coordinates (ie UV coords), and these are the things that affect the placement of color maps on the mesh surface. You can see the change by applying a grid texture, or look for something like "View UVs" or "UV Editor" in Max to see the UV coordinates themselves.

Phil

[desktopepics]

I think I see a little bit of what you were saying.

As a test, I just cut and flattened the passenger side (or drivers side depending where on the earth we all live ) window and put a material over the entire car when ported back to max.

Notice how the whole car (unUV'd) is a mess while the window is fine.

Thanks for helping me get a clue...UV Mapping esstentially brings big blocky maps into tighter, realistic spaces.

[headus]

You can think of UVLayout as dress-making or sheet metal fabrication ... when you're flattening out the pieces you're making the pattern, which is then folded up to make the 3D shape. When you're painting or attaching a texture to that 3D shape, its actually being applied to that flattened pattern.

Actually I don't know if that explanation helps at all, but it might help you to think of it all as a physical process.

Phil

[twocust]

you might also post a screenshot of your layout to show how you've arranged
them in UVEdit mode...I'm wondering if maybe you've got some UV 'shells'
outside the red square (0-1 UV space) and/or they are not completely flattened?

Looks like some points/edges might be almost right on top of each other creating that
stretched look on the side door of the vehicle....

[desktopepics]

Hi TwoCusts....

I didn't add any UV to the rest of the car at all ... just the small patch on the window as a test ... this way I can understand what sections work when you put it through the flattening process and the rest when you don't.

Now ... the real deal ... which is what all this is really about ... when we start doing faces. I have these flattened textures of faces from Poser (software) that I want to try to apply on a mesh.

I won't ask anything here until I really mess things up (I see UVLayout has a head tutorial I can follow).

Thanks for everything.

[headus]

One tip that might help is that you can use the "Trace" button under the Display panel to load up an existing texture map. This means that once you've flattened your head mesh, you can shape the UVs to fit the poser texture map.

Phil

[desktopepics]

Thank you for the tip. I'm going step by step over the UVLayout Head tutorial ... determined to master this.

So far so good ... just a question as I proceed.

This is where I am with my sample head thus far ...



Ultimately, what am I trying to do as far as colors go? The tutorial goes back kind of quick as far as stretching key areas and so forth as the optimize tries to make 'blue' turn 'green'. My goal is to make my UV's completely Green?

What of the red areas (as you see in the pic)?

here's the same head with the 'numbers' view:



I'm trying to see what I'm doing through the eyes of you pros. So I guess my real question is .... what am I looking at, what's wrong with it and what should I continue doing.

I appreciate your help ... more than you can imagine.

[headus]

Green is "good", meaning low distortion. You'll see that the applied grid texture is squarish and of equal size in these areas, which is important when you come to painting (or compositing from photos) the texture map for the head.

Red is "bad", and applied textures will be stretched in these areas. That means it'll appear bitty or blurry compared to the rest if the surface, so you'll want to try and reduce the amount of red as much as you can.

Blue indicates bunching or compression, and you'll see that the grids are squashed up in these areas. Its not as good as green, but not as bad as red.

Ideally everything would be green, but you'll need to cut a lot of seams to get that, and that can cause its own problems.

My next step I think would be to open up the seams round the ears a couple more edges ... the blue there is telling me that the shell boundary is under lots of tension, so opening that up a bit should reduce some of the red in the rest of the face.

Phil