Laying out UV maps

Roygee

Here's one that is really stymieing me - looking for some help from the UV experts:)

I made a .50 cal Browning - it consists of 35 separate meshes so that it can be animated.

OK, I've UV mapped it in UU3D, which sees each mesh as a group. In order to save on the number of texture maps I'll need, I have laid out the UV's so that alike objects are together - this gives me 10 "pages" of maps. In UU3D, all maps have to be stacked, so I'll have to stack the 10 pages on top of each other.

Normally this is not a problem because I can select an individual mesh in Carrara and export a template of only that part of the map. In this case there are 35 meshes involved and in Carrara you can't get more than one mesh at a time into the vertex modelling room where you export the template from.

I could do this in Hex by selecting each group of meshes, which would give me the templates I need, but Hex's template export is very low definition.

There was an application called MapMagic which could extract stacked maps, by royriggs, but that site is down.

Anyone know of a method or application I can use to extract the maps from a stack?

Canary3d

UV Mapper Classic version will let you do this -- export as OBJ, load the model into UV mapper, select by group, and then use the hot keys to hide the groups you don't want --the square bracket keys will hide and show what you don't want. Make it so it only shows the parts you want on a single map, save the texture map, etc, repeat. You need to have separate materials assigned for it to use all the right maps in DS and other apps that work similarly.

http://www.uvmapper.com/

DaremoK3

Hey Roygee,

You can try either Dimension 3D's UVViewer (My preferred) here:

http://d3d.sesseler.de/index.php?software=other

It is a great program that allows you to save out individual maps, use color maps, and block color/b&w maps. Use the Copy (copies to clipboard) function, and set whatever size you like (1024, 2048, 4096, etc). You can select by group, or by material, and you just deselect the maps you don't want exported with each map.

I find it easier to do my stack mapping naming conventions after DAZ's stacked maps (V4, M4, etc.) by prefixing all my material names (1, 2, 3, etc.). This helps to find stack groupings faster.

OR,

You can always use UVMapper Classic:

http://www.uvmapper.com/downloads.html

Just hide whatever maps not wanted per export, and then export to your desired sizing.

Hope this helps...

***EDIT: Canary3d posted when I was writing, and with better detail. Yes, that's the ticket...

stem_athome

Roygee said:

OK, I've UV mapped it in UU3D, which sees each mesh as a group. In order to save on the number of texture maps I'll need, I have laid out the UV's so that alike objects are together - this gives me 10 "pages" of maps.

Why are you not exporting the maps from UU3D?

Roygee

Thanks for the replies:) Canary3D - that worked great, thanks.

DaremoK3 - that does look interesting - downloaded to give it a try

Steve - I can't find any method of hiding layers of maps. I've tried having only the maps I want on one layer and dragging the rest off the grid, but that doesn't work. I've even written to the author and he couldn't give me a solution. Do you know a method of getting this right?

stem_athome

Hi Roygee,

You mentioned in your first post about UU3D seeing each mesh as a group. I work with those groups.

For the type of object you mention, this is how I normally work with UU3D:-

After first importing the object file, I delete (if any) all material groups. In the scene window, you can right click on any of the polygon groups that then shows a menu. In that menu select "Autohide" and "Autoselect". Each time you then select a polygon group, it will select and show only that UV map. I then UV map that group and rename if / as needed. Then move to next group. Once all UV mapped, I disable the "Autohide" and "Autoselect" and use (in that same group right click menu) "Hide"/"Unhide" to show the groups I want on the same UV template. Once I have only the groups I want showing, I "Pack UV" the UV maps and expand "all uniformally" to fill the UV space. Create a new material group for that set of UVs. Move to next set of UVs. Hide/unhide etc.
Once all group sets are done, I can select each set of UVs from the material groups to export the UV template for that single material group. (you can use the "Autohide" feature again if preferred)

Does that help/explain?

Roygee

Hi Steve:)

Brilliant - thank you - works great. I knew it had to be possible, just couldn't figure out how.

Now, why couldn't the author tell me that!