Need Recommendations on COMPREHENSIVE UV Tutorial
mikethe3dguy
Posts: 515
I've encounteried my first need for doing my own UV mapping and texturing. Hoping to do it with Hexagon and Photoshop but every time I get advice it's incomplete or assumes that I already fully understand UV editing. I don't, and while many of the tutorials I've found are good, all of them stop short of completing the task. I haven't been able to find anything yet (including the Hexagon user guide) that explains why one would need to "weld" UV seams after creating them, and what the heck Hexagon's "pinpoints" are or what function they perform. I don't care if I have to pay for a tutorial either, as long as I know that it is comprehensive before I buy it.
So I'm asking for suggestions... please.
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Here is the user guide for Hexagon. Sadly I can't help you out with that app. I use UVLayout.
Thanks, but I didn't mean that I wasn't able to find the hexagon user guide, but that it doesn't do an adequate job of explaining those functions or explaining why you need them. I already have the Hexagon documentation. I suspect that even software-agnostic tutorials would do what I need, if they were only complete. Sadly, none of the tut's I've found so far, even ones claiming to "explain it all" seem to do so.
If anyone here could explain UV seam welding, "pinpoints" well and their function, I probably wouldn't even need a separate tutorial. I think that's the only thing I'm lacking.
UV coordinates define how a vertex in 3D space is mapped to a texture.
When modeling, you mark UV seams so the program knows where it's OK to cut the mesh into chunks for texture mapping.
UV seam welding allows you to re-join the seams after the mesh has been unwrapped.
Every time you UV unwrap something, the program will rearrange the layout of your UVs to maximize texture space.
Pinning does exactly what it sounds like: the vertices are fixed in place so they don't move, while the vertices that aren't pinned will unwrap themselves around the pinned vertices.
So if I'm understanding you, once you cut the mesh up with seams, the "welding" are the instructions telling the render engine how those seams are supposed to re-connect when it applies the texture?
So it sounds like you need to pin all the vertices along each seam?
I don't know how Hexagon does it, but in Blender it's basically a snapping operation. You tell the program you want the edges of two faces to be "welded" together, so they become stuck together adjacent faces. I never use it, since just creating seams judiciously works fine for UV unwrapping.
If you've already unwrapped a part of your mesh and aligned it with a texture map, you pin that part so that it doesn't change during successive unwraps. If your mesh isn't aligned with the texture, then pinning isn't necessary.
Sorry I can't help much, but I would guess that "welding" the UV seams means joining the areas of the UV map that are going to be mapping the textures for the coinciding polymodel so that the textures to be applied come together as intended.
Good time for an "oy vey!" please, uvmapping in Hexagon and Blender is not done the same way. The big difference between Hexagon and any uvmapper is that no, Hexagon does not lay out all the islands to take advantage of the entire square. Nooooo. EVERY island must touch the bottom line!!! So after making all the seams [where you want the uvmap cut] - then unfold them [clicking on the little head on it's tab], switch from seams to point, and take a guess along which line you think would make the best middle line for symmetry. Then place 2 points, one at each 2nd intersection inwards [not the last line, the second last line] and click on the + and they will immediately rearrange. After experimenting and it's as good as it can do, then "Accept" it [use the button not the enter key]. Then use the 2D tools to rearrange the uvmaps how you want them. Be careful which way each island is oriented before welding any lines together IF you do that. The purpose is to make it easier to texture patterns across the model. The "checker" pattern that is on the model is what it will do also with your new texture on the model. Do not weld the dots together for this task, just adjoining lines for islands that have the SAME mat zone assignment. If for some unknown reason on the uvmap there appear to be a bunch of loose dots all over the place, then use the Tools > utilities feature [top bar] to weld all those points together.
As you gain experience, you will notice that to get nice symmetrical uvmaps, one must first make the mesh symmetrically. There is a Symmetry tool to help with that task too.
What type of object are you trying to uvmap?
No. You re-connect them on the UV map.
Why?
Take a piece of paper. In fact, go to the bathroom and take a square of toilet paper. It's softer and shows it better.
Hold it by one corner and gently blow at it. Now tell us, which part of the paper does move and which doesn't.
Now take your other and grab the opposite corner, the move both hands apart until the paper is stretched a bit. Don't bloody rip it or you'll have to get a new piece.
Blow at it again and observe which parts move and which don't.
Now explain to us why you believe every point on the line between those corners needs to be pinned.
No, welding seams is to put things back together on the map if they were spslit inerror, or if you have second thoughts about where to split, or possibly if you found it easier to work on two areas separately for bit but now want to rejoin them.
Sounds like a great reason why the OP should just use Blender instead, lol. You mark seams and hit unwrap, and then it gets unwrapped.
I understand that. I didn't think I was saying anything different.
Thanks for the clarification. Trying to shame me for asking a question is unnecessary though.
This may turn out to be the most useful advice so far. I'll check it out. I think there are many more good tutorials available for it too. Thanks.
Ah, thanks Richard.
It's my piece of road from another post in this forum. You gave me some helpful advice there but I still had questions.
Are you trying to make your textures curve along with the road?
Blender has an unwrapping type called "Follow Active Quads" that'll do that for you.
Indeed I am! watching a Blender Guru video tut on UV mapping now.
UV mapping and what works best is entirely dependent on the thing you are UV mapping
indeed your road needs a specific method many softwares cannot easily do
organic forms as opposed to architectural structures are completely different in how one would map it, buildings and furniture you generally map each panel to use a full square of a wood or masonry texture, Hexagon would do that very well as does Carrara which I use.
For my sculpted creatures I use the Zbrush UV master with bits painted telling it where to try and put seams as that is better, clothing I generally use Ultimate Unwrap 3D, the point I am making one size doesn't fit all.
A curvy road I would need to straighten and flat map then load the original as a morph!
good to know about the Blender follow active quads as that sounds much easier than what I do.
Yeah, it's very easy once you get the hang of Blender's toolset. Here's a tutorial on how to do it:
Yeah, fortunately it's looking like Blender can do that road straightening via UV if I'm understanding correctly. I'd been considering springing for Substance Painter since it now has an "auto UV unwrap" feature that could make all this academic. But at this point I think it's useful for me to gain a decent understanding of UV editing first. I still might end up pulling the trigger on it to do the texturing - I'm concerned about the area where my roads converge and widen since the "cobblestoning" is likely to get tricky there without a tool like SP. Thanks for your comments.
;-)
Blender has auto UV unwrapping too. It's called "Smart UV Project".
Also, there's been some extremely salty threads in the forum about transferring objects between Daz Studio and Substance, so you might want to take a look at those before taking the plunge on a paid product when totally a free program (Blender) that can do the same thing with no problems whatsoever.
Odds are I'll try to do it all with Blender. I had thought Blender didn't have a way to paint directly on a model but I know now it has the "Texture Paint" feature. Sounds like many things are faster and easier in Substance compared to Blender, and I have been worried about the learning curve in Blender but OTOH I will need Blender for more and more tasks in the future and so getting fluent in it has benefits beyond this one project and texturing in general.