question: uv mapping and Smooth problems

[gaggle]

_

[........]

I have same question in maya..but i find a Plugin in highend3D.com.
call: xyPolyTransferUV great Plugin.

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/plugins/?section=polygon#1842



This module allows transfering of UV topology between UV and 3D space, therefore allowing (almost) any modeling/deformation effects to be used on UVs.

[3dr]

Hi,

I have also had a lot of trouble with uv's after performing polysmooth operations in maya. It has really driven me crazy somtimes.

You can check out some interesting information on the subject
here (http://www.drone.org/tutorials/uv_smoothing.html) It features a workaround using the xyPolyTransferUV
plugin from Highend3d.

There is also a plugin called Smooth UV (or something) on Highend3d that will correctly smooth your uv's after polysmoothing your object.

[gaggle]

Hey 3dr, thanks for the info. I've tried the Smooth UV plugin, as well as xyPolyTransferUV, and none of that seemed to work.

Smooth UV essentially screws up the UV good, after chewing on it for a while.
xyPoly gives me an error "Error: No object matches name: unknown1.m" as soon as I call it. So that doesn't appear to be all that productive either.

Hm.

This appears to be my first verified feature where MAX trumps Maya flatout. Interesting. And incredibly annoying.

If anyone has more information on this stuff it'd still be cool to hear. I don't know what technical or spiritual reasons lies behind A|W's decision to apparently linearly-smooth UVs, but a proper workaround would be nice to know of.

I don't understand why there isn't a big uproar about this, because I don't see how one can polygon-model with this limitation.

[3dr]

I havn't tried the uv smooth plugin myself yet, too bad it didn't work for you. I was hoping it could be a solution to this extremly annoying problem.

I also wonder how other people deal with this problem...

[Dark Alchemist]

I also wonder how other people deal with this problem...

They go to other packages and some will never come back. :annoyed:

[Peter Reynolds]

If enough people don't complain to AW directly, there's a good chance it will not be improved.

[saubauch]

I actually came here to finally find an answer to this problem, after some horrible smooth poly UV'ing as workaround, and obviously its really not possible? :surprised

cmon, seriously, how can anyone texture any high res model in maya with this BUG?
Maybe some of the master artists I#ve seen posting here can shed some light on this issue...

-- a

[MrHyde]

I've helped develop the Smoothuv script and I can assure you that it does work. but we know there are limitations and we documented them. And it's still better than having to move the uvs on your high res mesh one by one.
Still, as someone says, your best bet is to read carefully this page:
uv_smoothing (http://www.drone.org/tutorials/uv_smoothing.html)
and follow Olivier's method. The only thing is I think xyPolyTransferUV has not been updated for 4.5 so you may have to do it in 4.0
So there you go, yes there is a problem but it has been documented and there are ways around it.

[........]

:shrug: Smooth UV no work in maya 4.0

[........]

:shrug: Smooth UV no work in maya 4.0.

[MrHyde]

if you go there (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/coyhot/Code_SmoothUV.htm) , just scroll down and you'll see a maya 4.0 and a maya 4.5 version. And please read the readme.txt for known limitations and such.

[saubauch]

Thanks to MrHyde, I appreciate the effort that guys like you put into developing such plugins for the community...I'll give it a try.

Anyway, I really dont get this. I dont understand why there isnt more turmoil about this, neither can I believe that every maya-artist has to rely on one of the ONLY two mentioned plugins....hell, I cant even believe A|W can put out a high-end 3d package with such a limitation...

...alright, Im done with ranting :annoyed:


-- a

[saubauch]

Originally posted by MrHyde
I've helped develop the Smoothuv script and I can assure you that it does work. but we know there are limitations and we documented them. And it's still better than having to move the uvs on your high res mesh one by one.
Still, as someone says, your best bet is to read carefully this page:
uv_smoothing (http://www.drone.org/tutorials/uv_smoothing.html)
and follow Olivier's method. The only thing is I think xyPolyTransferUV has not been updated for 4.5 so you may have to do it in 4.0
So there you go, yes there is a problem but it has been documented and there are ways around it.


when I tried the smoothUV plug, i got an error:
More than one object matches name: polySurfaceShape126
...any ideas?


-- a

[MrHyde]

well it's kinda hard to say. never happened here. It may have to do with the duplicate's history. Duplicate without upstream graph ( in the options ) or just delete both objects histories before applying the command.

[saubauch]

i deleted the history, also theres no upstream graph options in my dupl. options...just input graph, so thats not it.

I dont even have one shape126 in my scene.

:shrug: :shrug:


edit: is there some command i have to execute or just launch the script via shelf button?

[MrHyde]

there's a small UI for the script. You run the smoothUV command from there. I honestly don't understand, this polySurfaceShape126 error just doesn't make any sense...
I don't know, try and export the object to a new scene. Maybe try the sample scene and see if you've got the same error message.

[saubauch]

Hi,

I tried it again with a sample scene...same thing, only its polySurfaceShape1 this time :hmm:

Lets see if Im doin this right:
1. UV map and texture low-res
2. Duplicate and Smooth (any special options?)
3. delete history
4. select low, then high-res
5. run script from UI
-----------------------------------
6. get stupid error msg. :p

thanks for your help,

-- a

[gaggle]

If I'm not much mistaken that's exactly the error I got. polySurfaceShape1 and everything.

Using Maya 4.5 here.

[Andrei2k]

you probably dupicated your object and retained the name of it when you did and have multiple meshes with the same name as a result so it confuses maya. rename all the objects named polySurfaceShape126 to different name from eachother.

[saubauch]

gaggle:
im using maya 4.5 also. Have you got the xyploytransferUV to work? I didn't, need to try it in 4.0, though.

Andrei2k:
as I said, I dont even have ONE polySurfaceShape126 in my scene.

HOW DO YOU GUYS UV-MAP A HIGH POLY CHARACTER?

[gaggle]

sau, no, I haven't gotten it to work. I exported the one object to a fresh scene, deleted history, did all the mumbojumbo, and got the error. I've done it twice, but.. well hey, maybe I'm still missing some step. If someone firmly belives this works please write an easy-to-follow idiot-proof list of steps to take and I'll give it another shot.

[Andrei2k]

Ok, polySurfaceShape126 or polySurfaceShape1 or whatever the heck your mesh is called needs to be renamed to somehting then when duplicated it needs to be renames to something else or change the duplicate options. Naming stuff is important for functionality as well as organization. I just us projection maps or assign shaders to polies (or both) for high poly count characters or reduce the characters first then uv map. The script will work if the objects arent named the same.

[gaggle]

For what it's worth, my objects were called r_head and r_head1.

Maya won't allow two objects be named the same I don't think? I mean it can't happen right?, it auto-renames.. so.. idunno?

[Peter Reynolds]

Ok, so I too can't believe Maya doesn't handle this well. It can be quite a shock when you've gone to the trouble of setting up uvs, hit smooth and your UVs screw up.

But maybe I should choose my words more carefully. The UVs haven't really screwed up, they've just sat there and done nothing, while additional cvs have been added to our model and the cvs had changed their relative positions to give us a smoother looking surface. So what we need is for the UVs to change their relative positions to match our newly smoothed surface.

Assuming you set up your UV maps correctly before you smoothed your mesh, there's no point letting all that work go to waste, so one work around is to revist the UV Texture Editor and manually fix your problems.

I've found this hasn't been too time consuming (of course it will depend on your original mesh) but for humanoids and creatures, I've found I get uv problems in certain regions in particular. So the first thing you could try is a Relax UVs with Pin UV border selected - which might solve all your problems in one hit. But maybe it won't, so you could target the problem areas and select the relevant UVs, hit em with Relax UVs (that'll show em) with Pin unselected UVs. As a last resort, drag those little UV bastards kicking and screaming into their correct relative position. Put em in their place.

Hope this helps. And for the benefit of all Maya users, whenever you find functionality lacking in maya that you can find in some other app. Make sure you tell AW how their product is lacking. If you don't ask, you don't get. Also, there are some things we shouldn't have to pay for, or wait for, to be fixed in a new release. If that's how AW thinks you treat customers, they'll risk a lot of people jumping ship to XSI or whatever.

[saubauch]

hey peter, revisit the UV editor might work for certain models, but lets be honest, that shouldn't be the way to go.

heres my resumee on the two plugs:

smoothUV still doesn't work for me, neither in 4.0, nor 4.5. As MrHyde is still looking in this issue, I'll post some results when I got some.

xyPolyTransferUV I got to work in maya4.0, actually its quite neat. You'll create a flat objects of the UVs, smooth it, apply a planar projection, and transfer the resulting UV-mesh to your smoothed object. Its a matter of minutes and works pretty good.
But the chances that you get no stretches at all is pretty low, so you'll have to revisit the UV editor again, this time editing the highres UVs.

Anyway, I'm goin to mail A|W, and I would like to ask everyone who reads this to do the same, so that the developers get going and do something about this annoying, ridiculous bug.

-- a

[3dr]

I posted this issue on eSupport at the Alias Wavefront site and this is the reply i got:

"This is an issue that we are aware of, a bug has been logged.
Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to comment on the bugs status."

I'm looking forward to the day this annoying problem will be fixed.

[HADES]

hi 3dr did you have any news about that smooth uv from alias?

[Jan Svalland]

HADES: No, I havn't gotten any more news on the uv smooth issue. I just hope it's fixed in Maya 5.0....

[beaker]

my sources say yes they did

[kmp3d]

After a little experimentation heres what I came up with. I used danny's uv tools to lay out my uvs on my low poly mesh, and cut and stitch them as needed. Then I used the polytransfer plugin to get the uv maps into 3d space. Apply the smooth to the 3d uvs. Create a planar projection for smoothed 3d uvs. And then transfer the uvs to the smoothed hi-rez poly mesh. Whew!!! It worked great for me. And I didn't notice any distortion at all on the uvs. Check your plugin manager and make sure that the uvtransfer plugin is loaded. I kept getting that stupid error message because I didn't have the plugin loaded correctly. Also open the uvtransfer script and look at the directions in the header. They will tell you what to execute in order to achieve what you want. I highly recommend danny's uv tools. Before it was such a pain to lay out uvs. With his tools I can lay out the uvs in a fraction of the time it took me before.

[HADES]

that script only work for maya 4 not 4.5

[Morbid Angel]

I'd say that if they didnt fix this is maya 5 then the way around is to find or write a plug in for maya that allows you to inport uv maps saved from 3ds as *.uvw . Take ur lowpoly projected model in max smooth it there save the uv and then just load them in maya...

[beaker]

just a simple relaxing of the uv's has always worked for me(world spacing).

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