headus 3D tools

headus · Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:34 am Post subject: UVLayout v2.06 preview

Hello All,

A sneak preview of UVLayout v2.06 Professional (Windows only) is now available from the uvlayout.com Support Extras page. You'll need to login to access that, and have up-to-date support (i.e. have purchased a license within the last year, or have renewed your support subscription).

The main new addition is the Repaint tool, used to repaint an old map using new UVs.

So what you do is first load the modified mesh that doesn't have a map. Next, open up the "Render" panel and you'll see some new buttons down the bottom. Click on the "Mesh" arrow to select the file (OBJ or UVL) with the original UVs, and click the "Map" arrow to select the original color map. Tick the "Snap Shells" box if you want to move the current shells so they're locked to the pixel locations; this is needed for lossless copying of shells that have been translated or rotated by 90 degree steps only. Click the "Repaint Map" button and the new map should be displayed when complete. If you ticked "Snap Shells" you'll probably want to save out the loaded mesh because it will have been modified.

If the map being repainted is a texture space normal map, you can tick "Renormalize" and the normals will be adjusted for shells that have been rotated. The "nV" option selects nVIDIA style normal maps, and use "ATI" for maps with an inverted G channel. Its safe to leave "Renormalize" on for standard color maps because UVLayout will only adjust the color values if it detects that a normal map has been selected.

At the moment it only works for single tiles ... that is, all UVs in the original and current meshes have to be contained within the 0 to 1 UV space.

I hope to do the official release sometime next week.

Phil

Rich-Art · Posts: 120 Joined: 29 Dec 2005

Thanks phil... Sounds like a nice update..

Peace,
Rich_Art. Wink

headus · Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:40 pm Post subject:

Sorry, my explanation was all detail and not enough "big picture". The new Repaint tool allows you to load an old mesh and texture map into UVLayout where you can then modify the UVs (e.g. repack, optimize, even modify seams) and then repaint the old map according to the new UVs.

Phil

twocust · Posts: 77 Joined: 25 Feb 2006

wow, Phil! Shocked

that is phenomenally fast! after doing a little test, I wonder if there will be padding
and MIP-mapping issues, or is there already some pixel padding once re-painted?
(haven't tested in any game engines yet...just wondering if you'd already factored it)

great work! Smile

headus · Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:13 pm Post subject:

"or is there already some pixel padding once re-painted?"

UVLayout grabs a couple of pixels from the source map beyond the shell boundaries, if that's what you meant by padding. I can add an option in there if you want more that 2.

Its not very smart as far as filtering goes, so if you have differences in scale between the source and target polys you'll probably notice that the repainted map becomes either very blurry or aliased in those areas. Even with 1-to-1 scale, there will be some blurring in the repainted map because of the resampling. Shells that have been repacked and rotated by 90 degree steps only can be repainted without any quality loss though.

Its quick and dirty, but even when the quality of the repainting sucks (i.e. blurred or aliased) it at least gives you an accurate template for hand repainting.

Phil

TwoSheds · Posts: 104 Joined: 03 Sep 2009

Wow, sounds cool!

Does UVL 2.05.02 have to be uninstalled before installing this one to try out?

headus · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:30 pm Post subject:

Yes. Your keys file is preserved though, so its a simple matter of uninstalling the old and installing the new, and everything should continue to work.

Phil

TwoSheds · Posts: 104 Joined: 03 Sep 2009

Oh cool, thank you. Smile

What's scary is I was just thinking last week that it would be cool if UVLayout had such a feature.

digitalbot · Posts: 2 Joined: 10 Feb 2006

Right Hemisphere's deep UV had something like this...but it never worked that well. I was hoping somebody would put this into a UV-ing program soon. I can see it being very useful.
Keep up the good work Phil.

Rich-Art · Posts: 120 Joined: 29 Dec 2005

Hi Phil,

Any idea when this new release will be available for download?

Peace,
Rich_Art. Wink

TwoSheds · Posts: 104 Joined: 03 Sep 2009

Rich-Art · Posts: 120 Joined: 29 Dec 2005

Cool thanks for the quick reply. I did not looked in the extra section.
But perhaps it is wise to wait until this version is bug free.

Peace,
Rich_Art. Wink

TwoSheds · Posts: 104 Joined: 03 Sep 2009

No problem. Smile

Reading back my reply it seems sort of confusing.
Just to elaborate then, I meant that the one dated September 22 and called "iuvlayout-pro-2.06.00c.exe" was the one I had problems with, not the September 30 version.

I haven't tried the Sept. 30 version, "iuvlayout-pro-2.06.00d.exe" yet.

headus · Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:23 pm Post subject:

There is a packing bug fix in the latest upload, so maybe try 2.06 again; if its still crashing for you, I'd love to know of course :-)

As for the "official" release date? Hard to say at this point; I've got a few more things to fix, and am still adding more things, so it could be a couple of weeks away.

Phil

TwoSheds · Posts: 104 Joined: 03 Sep 2009

Hi Phil,
Well I went ahead and installed the latest 2.06.00d and have tried packing with symmetry on, which if you recall was when I was getting packing crashes last time, and it's not crashing now, using the same model as before. Very Happy

Also, I went on an undo rampage and didn't get any crashes with that either.

Looks good so far!