/3/ - 3DCG

>>444081
Wow that's going to be tough... unless someone here knows some Blender black magic that I don't.

Honestly, they way I would do that would be to export the UVs into a text format (like maybe .obj or .x) and then read them into a script, using perl or python or ruby or whatever text processing language you are comfortable with, then "fix" the UV coordinates with your program.

You could get a little closer to a grid if you used an external tool like Headus and applied something like "relax UVs" over and over. That will essentially try to make the area of the polygons on the UV map match the areas of the polygons in 3D space.

The real question is why you would want a grid, though. Your polygons aren't all the same size, so making them all the same size in UV space is going to cause distortion when you start painting.

>>444085

I allready made a rectangular texture so I thought I could just put the UV grid over it and just putt the inwards seams of the 3d model into the place where the seams of the pumpkin are on the texture if that makes any sense.

That's not how UV mapping works. You can't squeeze everything into a rectangle if your object is not rectangular. What you do is to paint the texture based on your existing UV (which is fine) so that it fits. You make the texture work for your UVs, not the other way around. If you're too lazy to do that there's no helping you because that's simply how texturing is done.

>>444092
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzypYCZzaR8

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?339991-Addon-UvSquares-v1-4-%28updated-any-shape-supported%29

I have this but never tried it, I'm fairly new to this too but Ii think it does what you want

>>444092
Yes you can, but the texture will simply be warped.

>>444081
You could do this manually in Max in 15 minutes or so
What I usually do is unwrap the base mesh and keep the UVs forever so this shit doesn't happen in the first place

>>444081

It's not particularly tough, even though it might not be such a great idea. It might be easier to have a few chunks instead of just one big grid. If the grid differs too much from the actual shape of the polys, the texture is stretched and won't look good.

>>444126 is a good way to finish the job.

Firstly though, you need to mark UV seams which tells Blender how to break up the UVs and map them properly. It seems nobody here mentioned this.

In Edit mode, click the tab Shading/UVs in the tool bar. You've got the Mark Seam / Clear seam buttons there. Select the edges of your model that you want to mark as edges and click the button. Use this to break up the mesh, separate along the ridges of the pumpkin.

Then, if you unwrap again, you'll see that the UVs look a lot better.

After that you can tidy up the UVs as shown in the vid.

Cheers.

>>444081 (OP)

It's not particularly tough, even though it might not be such a great idea. It might be easier to have a few chunks instead of just one big grid. If the grid differs too much from the actual shape of the polys, the texture is stretched and won't look good.

>>444126 is a good way to finish the job.

Firstly though, you need to mark UV seams which tells Blender how to break up the UVs and map them properly. It seems nobody here mentioned this.

In Edit Mode, click the tab Shading/UVs in the Tool bar. You've got the Mark Seam / Clear Seam buttons there. Select the edges of your model that you want to mark as seams and then click the button to mark them. Use this to break up the UV mesh. You can create seams along the ridges of the pumpkin.

Then, if you unwrap again, you'll see that the UVs look a lot better.

After that you can tidy up the UVs as shown in the vid.

Cheers.

>>444081
>ZOMG
>i'm drinking one of these right now
>:O
>11/10

>>444165
>It might be easier to have a few chunks instead of just one big grid. If the grid differs too much from the actual shape of the polys, the texture is stretched and won't look good.
>>444130
these are good points, i would have a patch of UVs for every large bumpy section of the pumpkin (imagine you are breaking garlic apart) to prevent too much distortion
if your seams budget (i.e. game engine) is small , you could try to glue thing together in one of the poles to create sort of like a flower shape, which will slightly reduce the amount of seams (but could make the packing of the UV patches into 0 to 1 a bit inefficient)

Holy shit for what purpose do you want it to be a grid
Why
It's a fucking pumpkin

Since we're talking about UV unwrapping here...

What about the seams? What tools can you use to paint completely seamless textures on to your model?

>>444234
that requires proper uvs and has nothing to do with how your paint your models

>>444234
Any software that can paint directly on the model, will paint over the seams seamlessly. Photoshop, Mudbox, Zbrush, SubstancePainter, Mari...

>>444238

But proper UVs inevitably involve peeling, right? So there will be a seam.

>>444239

I find it slightly awkward drawing right on to a 3D model. Is there any program that can allows texture painting that tiles the seams, so you can more easily visualize what you're doing and paint the texture over seams effortlessly?

>>444240

Ok, let's not get things mixed up here. There 'seems' to be some confusion here (badum tschhhh!).

Basically you can't properly unwrap meshes without creating seams, seams being the edges of the UV islands you create. Nothing wrong with seams, as long as you keep things simple.

Now, it looks like you are worried about seams as in what you see when a texture on a model doesn't line up properly on and there is a visual discrepancy, indeed what you can also call a seam.

Having a bunch of the first kind does not mean you automatically end up with the second kind. You only get those with poor texturing. In the olden days, when you had complicated shapes, you would try to hide the seams in places where it would be hard to spot the errors. This is still good practice, but with the software we have now things are so much easier.

I really can't imagine why you wouldn't want to paint directly on the model. It is so much more comfortable. There are some good tutorials and examples available.

>>444081

>>444239
seams will still be visible through specularity and shit, won't they? at least i've found that sometimes, even with textures painted directly on the model, that the seams were visible because the spec was off. but maybe i fucked up the spec maps or something

>>444324

No, they won't. Painting directly on the model actually decreases the chance of bugs, since the values will match perfectly on either side of the seam.

>>444324
That's only if your spec-map isn't painted on as well, or generated from your painted on color texture. Also, a normal-map should be generated from a high-poly smoothed version of the model, to the low.

>>444365
>or generated from your painted on color texture

i guess this is the culprit then. most of the time i am just doing a quick 'n dirty spec in photoshop, by making a greyscale out of the painted on texture and adjusting the level curves and tinkering a bit with it.

>>444424
If the diffuse texture is painted on, seamless, and you generate a spec from it, then the spec will be too.

>>444426
then i need to do some serious testing

if you just do a normalmap thing, or render the maps onto, fuck the nice neat texture, then your lattice is exactly right.
Just do "light map mapping"
U -> Light map pack -> ??? -> profit!

>>444081
is there a way i can lock a rotation axis for rigs so that the X axis for example becomes unmovable?

>>444483
in maya

>>444485
In Maya, yes, just right click on the Attribute and "Lock".

>>444489
oh...right thank you, sah. i completely forgot about the locks.
jolly good show old bean!
Appreciate it.

all these comments are retarded.


just pin (P) the outside vertices in the uv window, and move them to the edges of the uv square.

turn on live unwrap (UVs> Live Unwrap), and use align auto to get straight lines.

>>444513

But what about the stem?

>>444262

While drawing straight on to the 3D model sounds great on simple objects, I'm more reluctant to using that technique for objects with deep creases, holes or other hard to see places. Also, I'm not really sure if it would work when using filters, such as sharpening (tried it once in Photoshop, and it would only apply the filter to the currently visible faces).

Stop being lazy and create more than 1 seam.

>>444515
a good painting app will allow you to draw on the model and the uv. in substance painter for example you have a viewport with the model in 3d and a viewport with the uv. you can just simply switch over with the mouse and start painting on the model, then og over to the uv viewport and paint on the uv etc. it's neat, you don't have to completely draw everything right onto the model.

you can do this in photoshop or most other painting apps,to, though in photoshop i guess it is a bit more of a hassle because you have to switch tabs but it would still just be one click or something, so whatever

>>444522
forgot to say, that a good painting app will also have a layer like system. substance painter and mari for example, have a layer system that is similar to photoshop but with some neat other litthe additions

So I painted on the diffuse texture onto the modell and got a new texture projected onto the UV.

If I send this new unwraped image file through crazy bump and apply the spec, normal etc onto the model it looks horrible (since I guess crazy bump only works with flat surfaces)

How do I generate all my textures now?

>>444081
#
select uv-edge lines and hit W then align all to y and then to x. create new texture with a uv grid. and use grid to fix some stretching. always do that is cables textures. aside that sometimes is useful to create the uv map first and then go into modeling. will cost you later less time to fix it.

I don't know blender.. but what i do in maya is detach pieces of the mesh then bring it into Zbrush to unwrap. then export/import into maya and i have my clean UV map

>>444586
Bro, learn to use Maya, holy shit haha. Maya has very powerful unwrapping tools. Simply select the edges you want to split at, use the Cut UVs option, then do an Unfold in your UV Editor, and you're pretty much done most of the time.