headus 3D tools

[JohnJohnson]

Hi again
What are your insights,how much distortion is acceptable?
How is this handled best?

[headus]

As with all objects, there's no one best way to layout your UVs. It'll depend on the final use for that data. Sometimes reducing distortion is important and you dont care about seams particularly. And there's just as many situations where the opposite is the case.

Phil

[JohnJohnson]

Hope this does not sound stupid,UV is kinda new still.
When importing a torus I get instant this UV>
If I want a marbletexture not to distort all over the torus,is there any use to tweaking this further,or is this normal.

[headus]

"When importing a torus I get instant this UV"

That's the default UVs for a torus; your 3D modeling application has already applied that to the mesh before it was loaded into UVLayout.

If you want to start from scratch, with no existing UVs, then select "New" in the UVLayout import options. You'll then be able to cut the torus up into pieces, deciding for yourself where the UV seams will go.

Phil

[JohnJohnson]

Very kind of you,thx for your time.

[Sketchup]

Hi, I have a question regarding seams... is there anyway to make clean seams where the resultant texture will run 'seamlessly' over the seams? Not like in the above where 1's are clashing with 1's etc. Thanks

[headus]

Creating UVs is always a trade-off between distortion or stretching and the number and location of seams.

To get the "seamless" seams you're talking about, you'd normally make the shell boundaries straight and perfectly vertical or horizontal. That in turn though will create some stretching or compression which may be worse than the seams.

One compromise is to only do the straightening on the most visible seams, and leave the rest of the seams to take their natural shape.

Phil