I heard Jon Rush (character artist) describe it best. Chocolate foil-covered bunny. Unwrap the foil onto a 2D surface with as little distortion as possible.
UVs are "X and Y" coordinates on a 2D plane (0 to 1 range) that map to corresponding points on a 3D object. You learn where to place seams, how to make sure the UV shells are unwrapped properly, scaled properly, which parts of the model are symmetric (share UV shell) and which are not, and how to fit all the shells into a square space so as not to waste texture space.
you may of heard UV mapping referred to as skinning, think about skinning a animal into a rug how you cut it apart at seams and get it relatively flat.
UV mapping is so boring. After you're done making an awesome model, you have take time out to make every surface planar for unwrapping. It's worse when you have to unwrap a model with many polygons.
Luckily, game engines are making materials more procedural.
UV mapping is so boring. After you're done making an awesome model, you have take time out to make every surface planar for unwrapping. It's worse when you have to unwrap a model with many polygons.
Luckily, game engines are making materials more procedural.
For some things like low poly props, it's not that bad because there's less room for error and it only takes a few clicks.
For everything else though, it just inflates game development when you could be making better games. For example, why unwrap a car when you can just apply different shaders (like Mental Ray)?
its 2014 , i still dont understand how people cant simply use google to try and understand something...there are millions of resources for uvw mapping, the tools have never made it easier nowadays , come on man...
Lots of good explanations here. I like UV mapping too... maybe not the most exciting part of game art, but incredibly important, and provides a nice sort of break. I get tired of doing one thing or another for too long, so by the time UV mapping comes along I'm usually excited to do it.
I like unwrapping too, I'm always thinking about it while I model something. Stuff like...
Where the material and UV seams will go?
What kind of textures do I need?
How many texture sheets will I need?
Will some be tiling textures?
Will I use part of a texture to create a tiling mesh?
How the pieces are going to be laid out?
How will certain parts relax and can I plan some preemptive geometry that will help?
Bla bla bla bla
Waiting until the very end and then trying to answer some of those questions can be frustrating, decisions you made early on can cause problems later.
Figuring out how to avoid those speed bumps in the future, that's learning.
Repeating the same mistakes over and over again, that's self inflicted torture.
Some tips:
Use smoothing groups or multi/sub-object material IDs as buckets for your future UV shells.
Not only is it good to plan your UV seams where smoothing and materials break, but you can explode by smoothing and material ID.
Sorting UV's in max by material ID (lower right corner) is a good way to work on different groups and hide UV's you aren't working on.
Planar map your whole object then draw your seams, select a face hit "expand selection to seam" and then hit "quick peel". Bind these to hotkeys for even faster unwrapping. With a little bit of maxscripting you can run "expand and peel" with one hotkey.
Bind stitch and break to hotkeys also.
Personally I think it would be great if "expand selection to seam" was the default double click behavior in the UV editor...
its 2014 , i still dont understand how people cant simply use google to try and understand something...there are millions of resources for uvw mapping, the tools have never made it easier nowadays , come on man...
come on, you don't remember when unwrapping seemed like Voodoo?
I like unwrapping, I've been doing it longer than 3D! That's why modelers loved me in the Quake mod scene, I was a "skin" artist who would also unwrap your model.
Efficiency, ease of painting, and consistent scale are usually the main things I'm thinking about. Overlapping, etc tend to fit under these categories. The order of importance changes on what I'm making.
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Our wiki has a lot of information too.
http://wiki.polycount.com/TextureCoordinates?highlight=%28uvmapping%29
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTextureTypes
UVs are "X and Y" coordinates on a 2D plane (0 to 1 range) that map to corresponding points on a 3D object. You learn where to place seams, how to make sure the UV shells are unwrapped properly, scaled properly, which parts of the model are symmetric (share UV shell) and which are not, and how to fit all the shells into a square space so as not to waste texture space.
Luckily, game engines are making materials more procedural.
I like unwrapping
For everything else though, it just inflates game development when you could be making better games. For example, why unwrap a car when you can just apply different shaders (like Mental Ray)?
Pixar/Disney also had the right idea when they came up with Ptex. No more wasted UV space!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxNlAlOuQQQ
How
is made from a pattern similar (not identical too)
There are literally dozens of us!
(But I use Modo, so it's closer to four or five)
I like UV mapping and I use Maya.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
"I too like unwrapping.....oh erm.....captain, my captain?"
I'll drink to that, cheers!
and to think we were once friends...
WE NEED TO CLEANSE OUR FAIR TOWN OF THESE MISCREANTS! TO THE PITCHFORKS!!!!
Man,
unwrapping is one of my favourite parts of 3D...its sorta like retop can be quite mindless and peaceful - no need to think
*especially with UVLayout*
- Where the material and UV seams will go?
- What kind of textures do I need?
- How many texture sheets will I need?
- Will some be tiling textures?
- Will I use part of a texture to create a tiling mesh?
- How the pieces are going to be laid out?
- How will certain parts relax and can I plan some preemptive geometry that will help?
- Bla bla bla bla
Waiting until the very end and then trying to answer some of those questions can be frustrating, decisions you made early on can cause problems later.Figuring out how to avoid those speed bumps in the future, that's learning.
Repeating the same mistakes over and over again, that's self inflicted torture.
Some tips:
Personally I think it would be great if "expand selection to seam" was the default double click behavior in the UV editor...
come on, you don't remember when unwrapping seemed like Voodoo?
I like unwrapping, I've been doing it longer than 3D! That's why modelers loved me in the Quake mod scene, I was a "skin" artist who would also unwrap your model.
Backwards.