headus 3D tools

[Dodger]

Just something I was noticing that would make some stuff a lot easier...

Since UVLayout tends to end up with results beyond the 1x1 UV frame, I have to do a lot of scaling, but I'm finding I'm doing this in UVMapper or Max's Unwrap UVWs modifier a lot, because in UVLayout I can only scale one cluster at a time.

When I'm wanting to shrink the whole thing to fit inside the main square, if I do it in UVLayout I have to sort of eyeball to make sure, for instance, a sleeve is to the same scale as the lapel, back and front parts of a jacket (just from the example I'm working on right now).

Some way to mark multiple clusters for scaling at once would be great, perhaps by a marquee selection or something.

Additionally, when this is done, the relative distortion should probably be recalculated. I've noticed that if I scale things down they get all red, but if I export, scale down in UVMapper, and reimport, they're fine because their distortion relative to one another is even -- but when the scaling happens in UVLayout they're being compared to the original state, which means if I find a screwup (like a crumpled corner bit) and fix it (by cutting) and try to 'f' it, it tries to get all big again. Recalculating the relative distortion after a scaling operation would cut this down some, and if using a Scale All operation, would remove it entirely.

(BTW I'm not sure if I suggested this at some poiunt in the past -- I forget but it's been on my mind for a while)

[headus]

Hello,

If you just want to make sure everything is inside the red square, click on the "Auto Fit" button. When thats turned on, the red square automatically adjusts to fit the bounding box of all flattened shells. You can then turn "Auto Fit" if you need to move something outside the square.

You can sort of select shells for scaling ... use the L hotkey to lock the ones you don't want to scale (you can stretch a box around a group shells too), then use the Scale button to resize all remaining unlocked shells. But as you've discovered, this changes their colors because now they're now the "wrong" size relative to other shells. Its something on the list to look at sometime, but it sounds like you just wanted to fit everything in the red square, so you should use the Auto Fit for that anyway.

Phil

[Dodger]

Kinda sorta, but I also tend to work in pieces to avoid tasking the system, so I generally leave gaps for other bits to go in later (which is fine if they don't match after because since I do the pieces by material group mostly, sometimes it's better to have higher res on some things -- like the Bikey Jacket I'm working on, the metal bits don't need as much detail (in fact the zips I'm not even going to do in UVLayout, cause they don't need a texture -- the teeth are modelled, too tiny to bother -- I'll just slap a planar map on those and call it good)

One of the other things though is not just scale, but the move part. For instance, I just started mapping the studs (the little flat pyramid kind) which I did in Max by making one and then doing a scatter all over the lapel surface. Made a tonne of them in a split second.

Dropping them in UVLayout makes them all show up in a big long line. All 137 of them. It'd be nice to be able to take and 'stack' them, grabbing the line of studs in the bottom of each grid square and moving those all at once to the next row up, etc, rather than scaling the whole long line to fit in the 1x1 square. Then if there's a bit more, I could fill in a little bigger square and scale it, but that way not wasting space.

[headus]

To really save space you could use the Stack tool to stack them all on top of each other. But if you do want them separate, use the Stack tool to string them all out in a long line first, then lock the first how ever many that fit inside the square, move one of the remaining studs up to the next row, restack to create a new long line of the remaining studs, and repeat until they are all arranged as you want.

Phil