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More Feature Requests

 
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Vortexz



Posts: 2
Joined: 25 Nov 2014

PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 3:44 pm    Post subject: More Feature Requests Reply with quote

I would like to say that I’ve enjoyed using the UV Layout tool very much. There are a couple of features that would make it much more useful for what I use it for:

1) The ability to uv objects using planar projection, and then have the ability to copy that projection from world space (and possibly relative object space) to any other UVs. This would come in handy in certain situations that call for matching the UVs from one object’s shell to another. As far as I can see, none of the current tools do this effectively. This can be easily done in most 3d packages which I would do, but I’m trying to create all my UVs in one session, since, as I understand the tools, once they are exported to another package, they really can’t be packed again in UV Layout the same way if one wants to retain the boxes, locks, and other special features of the program on the UVs which brings me to the next request.

2) It would be nice to somehow tag info to geometry so that models can be re-imported multiple times into UV Layout after the initial packing and still retain all the UV Layout features such as box info, orientation, locked shells, etc. so that they could continue to be repacked with the organization that they initially had.

3) The ability to merge models during a session in case an object was missed initially.

4) A way to change the color of marked geometry from something other than green since it can get confusing to view the marked polys in the 3d view.

5) Grouping by materials doesn’t seem to work with 3ds Max materials. Even the Standard 3ds Max materials don’t show up in the list.

6) A way of sorting or grouping uv’d polys by size since most of the time maintaining texel density between objects that are quite different in size makes the small objects way too small in the texture space and it would be nice to be able to quickly choose shells by size.

7) It would be nice to import and export .fbx format to maintain mesh features such as instancing which could even make UV’ing more effective and would maintain more of the original file's useful editing capabilities.

I’m sure there’s other things that I’m forgetting, but that’s the main stuff that I was thinking about for now.
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headus
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Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Location: Perth, Australia

PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 8:48 pm    Post subject: Re: More Feature Requests Reply with quote

Sorry, only just found this posting!

"The ability to uv objects using planar projection"

Yes, we haven't added anything like that so far because every other package does it already, but I can understand how you might not want to keep switching packages. What do you mean by "relative object space" though? When UVLayout gets its geometry from the OBJ file there's no info in there about rotations etc that might be on the object in your modeler, so adjusting any projections according to object transforms is pretty much impossible, if that's what you are after.

"It would be nice to somehow tag info to geometry so that models can be re-imported multiple times into UV Layout"

Use the UVL format. If you click the Tmp or E buttons in the save panel it will save in that format, or if you want to use your own name, add ".uvl" in the filename input field.

"The ability to merge models during a session in case an object was missed initially."

Yes, I agree that is annoying! Its high up on my list of things to do, to I expect that'll happen sooner rather than later.

"A way to change the color of marked geometry from something other than green"

Fair enough ... I'll add that to the color preferences.

"Grouping by materials doesn’t seem to work with 3ds Max materials. Even the Standard 3ds Max materials don’t show up in the list."

That sounds like Max then isn't writing its material groups into the OBJ file. Maybe check the export settings if you haven't already. Email me a sample OBJ file if you want and I can check what info is actually in there.

"A way of sorting or grouping uv’d polys by size"

So the idea there then is that you want to pull the small shells off to one side to make them bigger or box them or whatever, right? Do you think a slider would do the trick? Drag it to select shells from smallest up to largest, or might that be too imprecise?

"It would be nice to import and export .fbx format"

That one is hardest, but its something I'll need to do anyway I think when I add multiple UV sets/layers.

Phil

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Vortexz



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Joined: 25 Nov 2014

PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for your reply, Phil. Here’s my comments:

"The ability to uv objects using planar projection"
Having the ability to do all the uv work in one software would be ideal. Planar projection is essential to one component of my company's workflow. The majority of the models that we work on are vehicles and aircraft. Planar projecting an object's uvs seems to be the most useful way of being able to use one texture across all object LODs to capture most of the model's details.
When I refer to relative object space, I'm referring more to a tool used in 3ds Max when using the UVW Map Modifier's planar projection. The modifier's Acquire feature allows the UVW coordinates to be copied from another selected object. With this feature there are two modes: Absolute and Relative. Absolute keeps the mapping gizmo where it was on the original object, thus maintaining the same space between all created uvs as they are in world space. Relative moves the gizmo so that it's positioned over the selected object. The Absolute method would be the one most often used I think, but Relative could be useful for offsetting UVs between objects based on their world space distance. Here's a link to the 3ds Max helpfile regarding the UVW Modifier if it helps: <<Links blocked until user has been cleared>>

"It would be nice to somehow tag info to geometry so that models can be re-imported multiple times into UV Layout"
Our models are usually reviewed in 3ds Max or Maya so when there's a problem and part of the model needs to be changed or parts added to it and UVs need to be re-packed, it has to go back into UV Layout Pro. The problem then arises that we can't use the same pack anymore without knowing which UVs were boxed or had the orientation toggle on, or were pinned or were stacked, etc. We wouldn't be able to get a close pack to the previous ones. The only process I could think of using to solve this dilemma would be to lock all the shells except for the added and/or edited ones, but depending on how extensive the changes would be may not produce a very optimized pack that way. Honestly I'm not sure how one would accomplish this. I thought that I would bring it up to you to get the thought process rolling. If a more complete exporter like fbx were used, perhaps one could do this through selection sets or some sort of metadata.

"A way to change the color of marked geometry from something other than green"
I also came across another thing that might be useful for viewing marked polys. When using the X-Ray mode it is sometimes difficult to tell where the marked polys are since all polys’ transparency is adjusted the same amount. Would it be possible to keep the marked polys from becoming transparent or maybe having a different slider for the transparency of marked polys so that one can still view the unmarked polys’ relationship with the marked in X-Ray mode?

"Grouping by materials doesn’t seem to work with 3ds Max materials. Even the Standard 3ds Max materials don’t show up in the list."
I checked the way my models were being exported. I was using a script that bridged 3ds Max and UV Layout Pro. It seems as if the settings that the script uses prevent it from exporting materials correctly whereas I tried exporting the model using 3ds Max’s .obj exporter and set it to export materials and it seemed to bring them in correctly.

"A way of sorting or grouping uv’d polys by size"
Your idea about the slider sounds like a good solution. It would make finding all the small pieces a lot simpler. That would help ensure that I don't miss any of them!

Another thing I was thinking about was the ability to mark polys in the editor based on angle threshold, similar to the segment functionality just as another way to mark polys efficiently. This could tie in with using projections nicely too, allowing selections based on angle threshold then projecting the selection.

Also, would it be possible to make the Overlap tool not show uvs that have been copied or stacked as overlapped?
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mokosan



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Joined: 03 Apr 2006
Location: NZ

PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 10:25 am    Post subject: a way of sorting by size Reply with quote

I'd like to add to this as I have asked for it in some way in the past.

Could we have one algorithm searching for all shells of a continuous mesh and packing them, similar to how the segment polys tool boxes based on marked polys.
Going even further, this could be useful if it ran on (boxed) every continuous mesh but this should be an option rather than a default.

All shells are grouped based on there relative size (ignoring continuous meshes as option). Having a slider for this would be a better option over a numeric field as these are always difficult to enter values in UVLayout (especially when using a wacom).

This would be great,

Cheers,
Michael
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kfinla



Posts: 15
Joined: 19 Jan 2006

PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 10:18 am    Post subject: Average UV distortion % amount per tile Reply with quote

I love that the UV coverage percentage is always updated. Thank you for adding that.

As a way to add even more empirical data about your UV's - what about also adding an "avg UV distortion % amount" to each UDIM (uv tile).

It seems like another way to judge the quality of your unwrap. You could compare one pack/flatten result against another not just on coverage but the avg distortion.
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