UV Painting Project and Hellboy build
- Thread starter ZooHead
- Start date
ZooHead
0
This is all working out nicely but I'm now working with a ridiculously hi res mesh.
So I wondered if I could delete unnecessary edges without messing up the UV mapping.
If done with care, you can.
Original Polygon count: 3,038
After Subdivision Level 3: 194,432
After Surgery: 96,178
Here's a closeup of the altered sight UVs:
So I wondered if I could delete unnecessary edges without messing up the UV mapping.
If done with care, you can.
Original Polygon count: 3,038
After Subdivision Level 3: 194,432
After Surgery: 96,178
Here's a closeup of the altered sight UVs:
ZooHead
0
When CubeMapping UVs on a hi res mesh produces, some UV "patches" are disassociated with the main UV mapping Seams.
The included image shows one of them, usually at a corner, but they can be moved and snapped back into place.
They may be rotated 180 degrees, in which case I set the Rotation Step size to 90 degrees
because it wouldn't rotate at all when set to 180. And in the UV editor Cheetah will only
let you rotate one increment at a time. In other words if set to 90, you can't rotate two
increments at once, you have to rotate twice.
It's a little odd, but once you figure out what's going on, it's OK.
Once the "patch" is snapped into place, you can Toggle
the Seam off around the patch and it's fixed.
The included image shows one of them, usually at a corner, but they can be moved and snapped back into place.
They may be rotated 180 degrees, in which case I set the Rotation Step size to 90 degrees
because it wouldn't rotate at all when set to 180. And in the UV editor Cheetah will only
let you rotate one increment at a time. In other words if set to 90, you can't rotate two
increments at once, you have to rotate twice.
It's a little odd, but once you figure out what's going on, it's OK.
Once the "patch" is snapped into place, you can Toggle
the Seam off around the patch and it's fixed.
ZooHead
0
Thanks T, I love the look too, it has an anodized aluminum feel to it.
I just finished the foundation of the material for this mesh.
The patina comes from the roughness layer of a PBR
called beaten up metal, but I used it as the Base Color.
I added a layer of light scratches over that.
Looks swell.
In such a case the cubic mapper works reasonably well, especially when you do use such a map (but try it with a simple ball). Unwrapping on the other hand is an art in itself which needs exercise.
To be honest, it's quite a while since I used Cheetah's unwrapping, but it was reasonably good. Not in the same league as other apps, I know. Not that the algorithms are bad, but Cheetah is missing additional tools and options, for example a way to straighten up some polygon island. So you have to do some things by hand that other apps do automatically (with pins and stuff). If you use any other app (for example 3d coat, blender, whatever) it's probably a bit easier to do it there. But with the right seems you get reasonably good results (and maybe you'll even need the unwrapper for some parts, especially when you want to paint scratches over edges). And the mapper you know anyway more than well enough, so I still suggest to use unwrapping (with the right seams you'll get reasonably straight maps).
The uv texture will later on be even more handy than just for distortion: For a scale that's roughly the same for all the parts that are made of the same material.
In such a case the cubic mapper works reasonably well, especially when you do use such a map (but try it with a simple ball). Unwrapping on the other hand is an art in itself which needs exercise.
To be honest, it's quite a while since I used Cheetah's unwrapping, but it was reasonably good. Not in the same league as other apps, I know. Not that the algorithms are bad, but Cheetah is missing additional tools and options, for example a way to straighten up some polygon island. So you have to do some things by hand that other apps do automatically (with pins and stuff). If you use any other app (for example 3d coat, blender, whatever) it's probably a bit easier to do it there. But with the right seems you get reasonably good results (and maybe you'll even need the unwrapper for some parts, especially when you want to paint scratches over edges). And the mapper you know anyway more than well enough, so I still suggest to use unwrapping (with the right seams you'll get reasonably straight maps).
The uv texture will later on be even more handy than just for distortion: For a scale that's roughly the same for all the parts that are made of the same material.
ZooHead
0
Thanks Has, of course I would use the Spherical Mapper on a ball.
On the sight rail I used Automatic Seams which worked better than my manually applied seams.
There is a way to Pin uv's in Cheetah but I can't remember how FB did that.
I found a command to select all pinned uv's but that's all so far.
And because I snapped uv islands together, I can have scratches over edges.
On the sight rail I used Automatic Seams which worked better than my manually applied seams.
There is a way to Pin uv's in Cheetah but I can't remember how FB did that.
I found a command to select all pinned uv's but that's all so far.
And because I snapped uv islands together, I can have scratches over edges.
ZooHead
0
Excellent suggestion, thanks. Starting with a simple shape like a ball makes
more sense than what I'm doing, starting with a very complicated one.
A simple ball in Cheetah already has it's uv's defined, spherically mapped I suspect.
But if you make it editable and add or subtract geometry, you may need to redefine them.
Observations:
The UV Mapper-
1. It doesn't need seams, but it uses the same calculations as auto seams and cuts along the same lines, without the green line.
2. It stacks all uv islands in a big pile, and you have to separate and rotate them, which is a pain.
3. The uv islands are not rotated at weird angles.
Unwrapping-
1. For a simple ball if you use Automatic Seams, you get the same uv Islands as you do from cubic mapping, but separated.
2. The uv islands, in this case, are not rotated at weird angles, but may be in other cases.
Much more testing is needed as with each test, many more questions arise.
I'm hopeful the uv pinning will make the difference.
I use pinned UVs often. You’re what you can do with them? Or asking how to create them???? If the latter just select some vertices in point mode, then call the Toggled Pinned UV command you found.It was right in front of me all the time, another "toggle" style command,
Toggle Pinned UV. It was right over Select All Pinned UV coords.
It is accesible in the UV Editor contextual menu.
Now what do I do with it? ...
After you deselect they turn yellow.
There is also a UV script by Hiroto that I find invaluable.
I think it’s called UV stepper.
— shift studio.
@ZooHead not at my Mac today, but I’ll see if can help.
Basically I find it useful if the UV unwrap produced less-than-optimal results, I’ll align/move/optimize some points in the UV workspace, pin them, then unwrap AGAIN. All the unpinned vertices will be remapped relative to the pinned vertices. I’m not sure this is clear enough- sorry.
You may find yourself pinning more and unwrapping a 3rd or 4th time as necessary.
This would not likely be necessary in your this project, as your islands aren’t rotated and are already positioned to your liking.
However, as the UV mapper in cubic projection distorts when going around a curve, you may want to try pinning points corresponding to flat parts of your model, then unwrap again to remove distortion on curved surfaces.
I appolgise if it’s not clear what I’m saying. I’m on my phone and can’t make and images to help explain.
— shift studio.
Basically I find it useful if the UV unwrap produced less-than-optimal results, I’ll align/move/optimize some points in the UV workspace, pin them, then unwrap AGAIN. All the unpinned vertices will be remapped relative to the pinned vertices. I’m not sure this is clear enough- sorry.
You may find yourself pinning more and unwrapping a 3rd or 4th time as necessary.
This would not likely be necessary in your this project, as your islands aren’t rotated and are already positioned to your liking.
However, as the UV mapper in cubic projection distorts when going around a curve, you may want to try pinning points corresponding to flat parts of your model, then unwrap again to remove distortion on curved surfaces.
I appolgise if it’s not clear what I’m saying. I’m on my phone and can’t make and images to help explain.
— shift studio.
I had forgotten about the pinning, probably because I never liked the process very much (today I usually get away without). What helped me get into it was this forum where you can find some good posts about it, mostly from Frank. To find them isn't easy as the word "uv" is too short to be used in a search, as is "pin" (which makes it kind of hard). So I only found two, but I'm sure, there must be more, especially as one of them is from the last year. Some hints on pinning points/vertexes for UV-Layouts or in this thread UV mapping=???.
Fun thing is, Cheetah's uv mapping helped me to get over my aversion against uv mapping. In the old days it was far worse to get a reasonably good uv map and the specialized tools did cost hell (today even something like rizom is "just" some 150 bucks, and a lot of apps as mentioned have good in-built tools).
( @Shift Studio: I thought you use 3d coat. So for me it's kind of surprising that you do your uv mapping in Cheetah. I have read good things about uv mapping in 3d coat).
And about my own comment about uv mapping the sphere. Zoo, please, try also the uv mapper on one (sperical will not give you the expected results). So the predefined mapping is very convenient, except you need to paint over the poles ... (for me, uv mapping always is a compromise).
Coming back to 3d after some longer hiatus, I'd hoped bitmap-texturing and uvs had mostly gone away. I'd hopped for procedural modeling to take over for the most part and for the rest there'd be something like PTEX from the disney studios (which is around for quite a time now. I don't know of any other app than 3d coat that supports it and therefore never worked with it). Or that you could get a distortion free uv map with just a click. It seemed right around the edge back then. Now, as it is, I'd still have to hone my uv mapping skills...
Fun thing is, Cheetah's uv mapping helped me to get over my aversion against uv mapping. In the old days it was far worse to get a reasonably good uv map and the specialized tools did cost hell (today even something like rizom is "just" some 150 bucks, and a lot of apps as mentioned have good in-built tools).
( @Shift Studio: I thought you use 3d coat. So for me it's kind of surprising that you do your uv mapping in Cheetah. I have read good things about uv mapping in 3d coat).
And about my own comment about uv mapping the sphere. Zoo, please, try also the uv mapper on one (sperical will not give you the expected results). So the predefined mapping is very convenient, except you need to paint over the poles ... (for me, uv mapping always is a compromise).
Coming back to 3d after some longer hiatus, I'd hoped bitmap-texturing and uvs had mostly gone away. I'd hopped for procedural modeling to take over for the most part and for the rest there'd be something like PTEX from the disney studios (which is around for quite a time now. I don't know of any other app than 3d coat that supports it and therefore never worked with it). Or that you could get a distortion free uv map with just a click. It seemed right around the edge back then. Now, as it is, I'd still have to hone my uv mapping skills...
ZooHead
0
@Shift Studio That gives me some idea, thanks.
More testing tomorrow.
@Hasdrubal Thanks for the links, I suck at searching. And when it says it's to short I give up.
Frank tried repeatedly to explain uv pinning, but I wasn't ready to learn it at the time.
More testing tomorrow.
@Hasdrubal Thanks for the links, I suck at searching. And when it says it's to short I give up.
Frank tried repeatedly to explain uv pinning, but I wasn't ready to learn it at the time.
Perfectly understandable. Almost everyone hates uv mapping.
There is a workflow I use quite often which I also works in Cheetah (without seams): Select a part of a mesh, unwrap (or use uv mapper), straighten what's necessary, shove the newly made island out of the uv (so you make sure that it doesn't overlap), hide the polys. Select another part of the mesh, unwrap (or uv mapper), straighten, shove, hide the polys ... etc, til the whole mesh is hidden. Unhide. Position the islands in the uv map, finished.
ZooHead
0
@Hasdrubal I'll have to try that method, sounds good.
I do like the fact there are choices for uv mapping in Cheetah.
Testing uv stuff always sends me down the rabbit hole, with mixed results.
I do like the fact there are choices for uv mapping in Cheetah.
Testing uv stuff always sends me down the rabbit hole, with mixed results.
Yes, I do use 3D-Coat. It is good for UV unwrapping... making/clearing seams is much quicker, it has 5 unwrapping algorithms I believe, including one called 'Strip' which I like for certain geometry and one called Globally Uniform which is 3D Coat's own algorithm, plus a bunch of options for packing the islands depending on what you may want.
Cheetah 3D, when combined with raster snapping, parameter box math and UV Stepper, allows me to get really precise with island positioning, scaling and rotation if necessary - I like that for certain things. Also C3D supports texture tiling much easier (imo) than 3D Coat.
So, both have their uses for me and sometimes I'll even use both.
Regarding PTEX I've used it a couple of times in 3D Coat - its clever, but if you ever want to edit the textures outside of a PTEX-Enabled painting app, the only things you can do are global adjustments (hue, Sat, values, contrast etc).
Just a side note for @ZooHead - I'm sure you know this already ... painting your model in something like 3D-Coat or Substance Painter, would be much easier - and if you felt like it, you could even do automapping for the UVs (the islands would be all over the place, but 3D-Coat doesn't care).
@ZooHead I'm enjoying following along with your progress - it's looking great!
-- shift studio.
Last edited:
ZooHead
0
Thanks, after this experience I would welcome something like that.
I've been testing seam placement, unwrapping and pinning and it's not fun, or predictable.
I need more experience but I probably won't get it because it sucks.