Unwrap in 5 minutes

[Addiso]

Thx for the usefull tutorial DaGor ! :thumbsup:

If you have more tips and trick up your sleeve, feel free to post them here ! :)

[Stutz Jr]

Wow, that creature unwrap is a really informative example!
I have tried many times to fugure out which of the two unwrap methods works best for me, and I always end up with far too many small segments that never seam together nicely, even with the highest resolution UVmap. I also have big problems trying to identify what the segments are when I load them into my paint program (Gimp). Now I can see that I must be trying to separate too much detail and that's why I have seams along really noticable ridges. Not only that, but I never considered trying to use both Unwrap methods at the same time!

I'll try to download the video but it may take me a while on dialup - Can you please tell us what version of wings you did this in and what options you used to generate the map file?

Thanks DaGor!

[DaGor]

i use wings-0.98.29b.exe

you can download wings3d and user manual here: http://www.wings3d.com
sorry, but i don`t understand what you mean when say "and what options you used to generate the map file" last screenshot i do from Softimage XSI
if you mean texture map from wings you can generate it this way:
when your UV unfolded, RMB in the UV Editor window and select Create texture
now you can select some options like Texture Size, draw or not draw edges in texture map.
If you mean UV map i do it very simple: i marc edges as CUT and polys as CHART and do UNFOLD. All other work do wings.

[Stutz Jr]

Thanks again,

last screenshot i do from Softimage XSI
Ah ok, I wondered why it looked different, that's why.. Did you need to alter the map in softimage - Or was that just for rendering?
I wasn't able to get the the video, kept getting to the direct download and getting a 7kb file of junk. (Wasn't using a download manager). Not to worry, as the example image is explanation enough. I'm going to have to learn a bit more myself as I guess I still have too many questions about the steps AFTER unwrapping to get a decent result..


Here's what usually happens for me.. The model is not finished and the cuts were not well considered, but I always end up the same even when I take my time. The segments all have a different scale / proportion and angle that are difficult to paint onto and all the seams will end up with jagged aliasing noise that really spoils the effect and discourages me from spending any time painting proper textures. I probably have a lot of issues to address but I hope I can learn from your example..
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/1006/uteuw7vw.th.jpg (http://img259.imageshack.us/my.php?image=uteuw7vw.jpg)

[Stutz Jr]

Sorry for cluttering your thread!

Anyway I figured out what I was doing wrong, but for now I'll stick with predefining my cuts by using hard edges as that way I can save + go back and make changes without having to start over each time. I did learn about the use of the "Remap UV->Project Normal" function which seems to fix up a lot of the scaling issues I had.
I was able to do this example using the 1024x1024 texture BMP with all edges (initially) included...
http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/6006/utemap9sr.th.jpg (http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=utemap9sr.jpg)

[DaGor]

sorry man i have no so many time to think about your troubles.
also my english is not good.
try to understand what you want ^):
U ask: Did you need to alter the map in softimage - Or was that just for rendering?
I answer:in my last screenshot UV as is. i mean that wings unwrap and i import my model back to XSI. i don`t modify, rotate, scale etc UV. I`ll do it later cause there are too many free space in the UV map.

i look at your 1st picture.
I think you did too many cuts.
http://img332.imageshack.us/img332/6707/210cl.jpg[/url]

there may be one small problem in wings3d
when i do unwrap for creature first time, i select horns and do unwrap for horns. then i hide horns. next i select teeth and unwrap teeth. then i hide teeth. nest i select one half of head and unwrap it.... and so on.
finaly i had non proportional scale for all pieces cause each peace was unwrap in full texture size.
piece of mesh have different size but piece of uv have same size.
http://img306.imageshack.us/img306/6858/qq6vp.jpg (http://img332.imageshack.us/img332/6707/210cl.jpg)
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1510/aq7iy.jpg[url="http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1510/aq7iy.jpg"]
when i import model back to xsi i must rescale piece and reorient it.

if you do full cut of model before unwrap all UV pieces would be corect size like my xsi screenshot.

[Stutz Jr]

That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you taking the time to do that!
I ended up with something similar but I bet it took me a lot longer than you :)
I don't feel worthy to have my pictures in this thread but I'm learning a lot from this
so I apologise to everyone else :) I promise this is the last one..
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/1764/utemap20vr.th.jpg (http://img225.imageshack.us/my.php?image=utemap20vr.jpg)

I understand what you mean about the proportion now, whatever you unwrap will take up the full size of the map so you need to scale things if you want more detail..

If I can ask one more question,
when i do unwrap for creature first time, i select horns and do unwrap for horns. then i hide horns. next i select teeth and unwrap teeth. then i hide teeth. nest i select one half of head and unwrap it.... and so on.
So were the horns and teeth separate objects or only for that test? I don't know how to combine different auv's into one map? Or did you just hide some of the faces on the main object?

Thanks again

[DaGor]

you can ask more question, if i find time i answer.

horns an teeth one object. if i import model back in xsi i will have ONE uv map for horns and teeth but there are overlaps in the map. like 3rd picture in my last post.

if you want to get all UV of all object into one map you must: select all object and RMB>Combine. Now you have one object. next you go in AutoUV window and make cuts and charts. then unwrap.

my 2nd picture in last post.
there are 2 areas with UV and one area without uv.
Areas with uv have checker texture. area without uv just gray color.
all this areas are ONE object so there is ONE uv map but there are ovewlaps. to fix overlaps you must scale and reorient and move you UV pieces. you can do it in wings or in xsi or in any other software.

hope i help you.

PS. if you want, you can ask me. tommorow i`ll get married and then i go to my parent. there are lives in other city and have no internet :) so i try to answer you today evening or 25-26 July.

[Stutz Jr]

Well congratulations then!
I think you answered all my questions so thankyou!

I hope you have a nice time tomorrow

[pauljs75]

Good start. :)
It's never a bad idea to get people started, especially when it comes to figuring out something that doesn't make much sense at first. The more people who try mapping, the more that will come up with new methods and things to teach.

Yet I think there's still plenty more to show in regards to methods of mapping things. Definitely more than just two ways of doing it too. (There's good sticky potential for a thread covering this particular subject.)

In addition to the unfold and normal projection methods, 98.31 also has spheric projection and camera projection. Then there's plenty of things to consider in how to chart something in segmenting mode. Where to place cuts? When should you trust the auto UV functions? And how does each mapping method affect the manner in which the resulting chart spreads out and distorts.

It is possible to produce maps for the same object with distinctly differing qualities. (I might show this with a tapered cylinder example if I can find the pic, since I covered it already at a different forum.) One map could produce UVs for each polygon normal with no distortion (cut so that it perfectly flattens out when unfolded), yet it will have plenty of seams to match up when painting. Another map could have just one seam, yet have distortion in the UVs projected over the mesh. And then there's the consideration of the problems and benefits associated with each way of mapping. What works great on an organic critter might not work so well for a car and vice versa.

Then once the chart is created, there comes time for refinement. What parts should be made larger or smaller? What are the clues that something should be remapped? Are additional cuts needed? Should some parts be stitched together? Do I need to pin vertices when remapping? Should I arrange pieces to help make sense when it comes to painting? (More often than not, wings tends to be "random" in how it does this.) Any tricks on making seams easier to line up, etc?

[LouisBrowne]

I've been looking for a AutoUV tutorial all day, and this suited me just fine. You should ducument this a plaster it all over the web!

I can't believe you wings3d guys have been so quite about AutoUV!!
When was it implemented? This is going to change my work flow for sure!
Thanks

[dgud]

Thank you,appreciated.

I've been working on and off with it since I started coding in wings, a couple of years now I guess..

Use the developer version of wings since it's slowly improving with each release..

[LouisBrowne]

Thank you,appreciated.

I've been working on and off with it since I started coding in wings, a couple of years now I guess..

Use the developer version of wings since it's slowly improving with each release..

You deserve more than just thanks, It's quite something to have produced an industry leading innovations like this. It absurd to think your giving it away for free when expensive application like Deep UV are not even as capable and getting results this quick. It makes me smile. It seems the industry is only just catching on now, with implementation of similar tools in the release of Unfold3d and the next version on Modo. They're the reason I stumbled on AutoUV. I was scouting, looking for an alternative. And it's trully insane, to find the ideas been around for years in a free app!! I hope you get your just deserved acknowledgement & paper notes*



Man, you have know idea how much I hate Uv’ing.

Thanks you!

Peace

[dAfTiE]

You deserve more than just thanks, It's quite something to have produced an industry leading innovations like this. It absurd to think your giving it away for free when expensive application like Deep UV are not even as capable and getting results this quick. It makes me smile. It seems the industry is only just catching on now, with implementation of similar tools in the release of Unfold3d and the next version on Modo. They're the reason I stumbled on AutoUV. I was scouting, looking for an alternative. And it's trully insane, to find the ideas been around for years in a free app!! I hope you get your just deserved acknowledgement & paper notes*



Man, you have know idea how much I hate Uv’ing.

Thanks you!

Peace
Yeah,it makes me chuckle when I see people falling over themselves from the Modo 201 demo vids :)
I have to admit that the first releases of AutoUV had me really confused,but now I don't think I could get by without it.
There are also similar tools implemented in Blender,but I never actually tried them,seeing as AutoUV does everything I need and then some.

[lovisx]

I didn't realize you could cut the mesh like that, I was just using regions.... wow!

and just watching the modo video for siggraph, they don't pay any dues to the people who thought this stuff up first. They made it sound as if it was the result of their powerful brain storming :scream:

[dAfTiE]

I didn't realize you could cut the mesh like that, I was just using regions.... wow!

and just watching the modo video for siggraph, they don't pay any dues to the people who thought this stuff up first. They made it sound as if it was the result of their powerful brain storming :scream:

Well,they did make it interactive,so you drag it out instead of just clicking.
I think the papers on LSCM came out of Siggraph some years back,
and are out there in the public domain,the hard part is obviously implementing it.
That and making it sound like your 800 dollar app is the most affordable with the functionality in the market. :)

[lovisx]

aahh, so the idea wasn't necesarily the wings team's either?

[dAfTiE]

aahh, so the idea wasn't necesarily the wings team's either?

Couldn't find the original posts from dgud back in the day when he first implemented it,
I guess they might have gone when ez boards had their little accident a while back?

Anyhoo,I found this paper from siggy 2002 (I think),not sure if that's the one they worked from,
but it's at least one of the available ones that explains the theory behind it.

http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~sheffa/papers/TOG02.pdf

Pretty interesting read,once my C++ skills goes beyond a REALLY fancy hello world program,
I'd really like to give something like that a go :)

[dgud]

Nope, the unfold idea isn't mine.

Wings implementation comes from this paper:
'Least Square Conformal Maps for Automatic Texture Generation Atlas'
by Bruno Levy, Sylvain Petitjean, Nicolas Ray, Jerome Mailot
Presented on Siggraph 2002

I wanted textures on my models which I had done in wings, so I googled around
found the paper and implemented it (with alot of help from Ratmapper). Since I was a completly newbee in 3d (even in computer graphics and still am) having used only wings and never done any uv-mapping, I didn't know what other apps did, but I wanted something simple, yet powerful and user controlled to some degree..

But I think that is good coming in from another area, I don't know what other apps do so I'm having my own vision of how it should be done, and then reading user ideas and wishlists.

[dAfTiE]

Nope, the unfold idea isn't mine.

Wings implementation comes from this paper:
'Least Square Conformal Maps for Automatic Texture Generation Atlas'
by Bruno Levy, Sylvain Petitjean, Nicolas Ray, Jerome Mailot
Presented on Siggraph 2002

I wanted textures on my models which I had done in wings, so I googled around
found the paper and implemented it (with alot of help from Ratmapper). Since I was a completly newbee in 3d (even in computer graphics and still am) having used only wings and never done any uv-mapping, I didn't know what other apps did, but I wanted something simple, yet powerful and user controlled to some degree..

But I think that is good coming in from another area, I don't know what other apps do so I'm having my own vision of how it should be done, and then reading user ideas and wishlists.

Your implementation was certainly the first I ever saw,and for that matter,the only one until recently :)
I'm loving AutoUV,especially now after it's gotten a bit more integrated with Wings.

Million thanks to you and the rest of the Wings dev team for all the hard work.

Oh,and thanks for the name of the paper.
I remembered the original posts on the ODF back in the day,but I couldn't remember the name of the paper,
and the search function couldn't find it for me.

[puzzledpaul]

<< But I think that is good coming in from another area, I don't know what other apps do so I'm having my own vision of how it should be done, and then reading user ideas and wishlists. >>

Sounds as good an approach as any other - and judging by the results, it is :)

pp

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