Editing with UVW unwrap
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Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

This tutorial is to help anyone wanting to use UVW unwrap to edit their texture on an object. When we make objects in max sometimes when the texture goes on it is fragmented. To fix this you can use UVW unwrap to put the image back in order. A bonus to this is you can reshape the texture directly editing the t-verts and t-faces to change slightly complex textures so they are not so redundant across various tiles. I have a cliff face texture here that you can see is fragmented. I will walk through the process of editing it to a consistent image.

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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

To get into and use the editor you have to first select the object. Go to edible-mesh on the right roll out. There you select verts and select all the verts. Once that is done go the the right roll-out menu and pan down until you find UVW unwrap(highlighted in the picture). Hit that button. The cliff on the tile now is outlined with green lines. These green lines show the outside edges of your texture divided up into t-faces. As you can see there are alot of green lines showing exactly how your texture is fragmented on the object. That is what were going to fix.


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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

Once you have hit the UVW unwrap button a tab will show up on the right above the aurora tri-mesh and edible-mesh. It will be auto selected and you will see a new panel below that. Most of the mapping features on the panel will be defaulted. you can use my settings if you like. The important part is the edit button that will open up the direct texture editor for you so that you can directly edit the texture verts, faces and edges on the texture map itself. I circled the edit button for you.

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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

OK, So far so good. The next image has a lot on it. First, You see the editor. I am going to use the base pattern to do this. If you want to see the texture in the editor there’s a roll-out in the upper right corner called UV. Roll that down. The texture on the object is usually right under the checker pattern. You also notice that all the faces are inside a box with thicker lines. That I believe shows a 1 to 1 spacing on the texture. outside the box the texture repeats. You can widen the texture to double or quadruple the sides getting a repeating pattern if you like.

This is a simple cliff. The first thing you want to do is flatten the t-faces so that you can see all of them. I have done this in the pic. To do this its very important that you first push the faces button on the bottom of the editor. it is highlighted as a red and yellow checker button. Then you want to unroll the mapping button on the top screen and hit flatten mapping as I have done. From there you can move the pieces around and connect them together.


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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

This picture shows me using the editor to move the pieces outside the box. I leave a big piece in the box, weld everything together as I go, then stretch the texture with the t-verts to make the texture in max the way I want it.

In the picture you first notice a set of faces in the editor in red and a corresponding set of faces the main board also in red. That shows you what set of faces you are working with so you have an Idea whats going on in both screens.

On the bottom of the UVW editor you see the faces button still colored in yellow and red. The two buttons beside it are to select edges and vertex. You use them just as if you were in the main max editor with regular verts, edges and faces.

Currently I am rotating the faces I have selected to match the rotation of the faces on the Main board. You can tell by the highlighted button on the top left that looks like an arrow circling. rotating takes some time due to the sensitivity of the function but you'll be able to pick it up in a few tries. Beside that button is the move button that looks like a cross of arrows. If you select that instead you can move the selected faces together where you want.


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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

Here I am aligning sections to weld together. You see I have the move button highlighted instead of the rotate and again both the UVW editor and Max have the same section highlighted. The one thing I would like for you to notice in this pic is the matching sides of the large section are colored in blue. So you don't need to search around for which set of faces match together. The editor does that for you :).

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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

Matching up individual vertex is much the same. Here I am about to weld two matching vertex on the same two sections. You notice I have one vertex selected. It's matching vertex is highlighted in blue.

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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

Now its just a matter of welding the vertex together. now what you want to do is hit the vertex button on the bottom of the editor instead of faces. Select the vertex to weld and move it over the matching vertex. Box the two in with the shift key and the cursor. Now you want to go all the way up to the top of the editor to tools. I have it opened up in this pic. In the roll-down there is a button called Weld Selected. I have it highlighted. Hit that button and every vertex you have selected will weld together. Remember that every single vertex you have selected will weld together so make sure you don't have any other vertex selected except the ones you want selected.


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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

After welding the two objects together you now see that they have become one larger section with the edges in green surrounding the outside.


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Re: Editing with UVW unwrap

Post by Winterhawk99 »

This is the finished product. I have welded all the sections together to make one fluent texture on the object, then moved the vertex in the editor around to get a decent look on the model as you move the vertex you can watch as the texture on your model changes. In this way you can put a bit of artistic touch into the finished look of the cliffside.

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