headus 3D tools

[illusory]

Working on a head uv layout, and finding the following problem:

The symmetry function, hitting 's' after moving some points in the uvs, worked fine at first, but after a couple times (and using flatten once), the 's' pulls the opposite side too far into the center, causing overlap and squashing. See attached pics.

Since i'm brand new at UV LAyout, there is probably a remedy for this i haven't found...
please let me know what it is,
NJ

PS I'm working with a texture in the background, not shown in the pics, for clarity. But it makes it pretty clear that I'm not moving the center points over the midline, which would be one thing that might cause this. In fact, i've not moved any points near the center line before hitting 's' so i'm pretty sure that's not the problem.

[headus]

The first thing the symm copy function does is rotates the shell so that the two boundary cross-over points are vertically aligned (see circled points in attached image). This is a good thing normally because it means your shell doesn't have to be perfectly upright for the symm function to work. In this case though its causing the problem because that lower point is off center; the shell gets rotated slightly then the points are copied, creating that overlap in the center.

There's a couple of solutions:

Pin both the top and bottom points so they don't drift off center during flattening. One draw-back to this method though is that it can stop the shell flattening properly if its not already close to optimized.

I prefer to use the I / Shift-I hotkey to tag that center line; it'll keep it vertical while allowing the rest of the shell to flatten properly. When you do the symm copy, you wont get the overlapping thing happening in the center. This vertical align tool is covered in the Advanced Interior-Straightening movie.

Phil

[illusory]

Thanks for explaining about the points, will watch that. I found the I-key thing watching more videos -- good to do this earlier in the process apparently, before everything is set.

By the way, I LOVE the tweaking tools in UV Layout. Adjusting UVs with an interactive error map is just wonderful, after years of other methods... And the three ways of pulling points is very useful indeed. And the local scale and smoothing in between -- these things, along with all the other creative devices, really sold me.

Somebody there really knows the headaches of UV work, and is out to conquer them...

NJ

[headus]

"Somebody there really knows the headaches of UV work"

Actually, a lot of the good stuff in UVLayout is there because of user requests. You'll probably see a lot of the things you like in the "done" section of the wish list, which is where I collect various peoples suggestions ...

http://www.headus.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=19

Phil