material ID selection

[EricChadwick]

Tall modifier stacks are not the easiest most reliable way to go.

I would suggest using the base Editable Poly to assign the IDs. After you set the ID for a chunk of faces, stay in SubObject mode and add your UVW Mapping modifier. Adjust it, then collapse the stack and repeat with the next chunk.

You may even wish to add a UVW Unwrap after each collapse, to edit the UVs you just made, then collapse again.

Only reason for a deep stack, IMO is to allow some interactivity with the model, say for animation. But with that comes a lot of resposibility because SO-selections can be fragile.

My 2 cents.

[TimWoods]

posm is right, regular collapsing after applying mat ids and uvw maps is the best way to work. large stacks can be volitile!

:D

[mouj]

Another way around (i think, tell me if i'm wrong) would be to start off by defining Material Ids for each set of faces (i hide each set that's done, to keep viewports clean - once i'm done i unhide all), then once you've done that, you can start in subobject mode to select Matid 1, apply UVMap and tweak, then MeshSelect, MatId2, UVMap and so on until you're done thru all your Matids, this can make for a pretty big stack, but it stays tall only while you are defining your projection types, then you can collapse and apply an Unwrap, your MatIds should be safe this way, and the stack "grows tall" only once and for a short time.

I must say that at times it crashes in the midst of applying UVMaps, but this does not happen that often : )

It's no better than what posm and Tim are describing, i guess it's just another way around, and the pb you'd experiencing i think comes from the fact you're defining MatIds as you go, when i think they should be defined only once and for all, over the entire mesh.

mouj

[listen202]

Thanks for the 411 all. Last night I kind of gave up on the large stack and started to collapes after every uvw. I dont realy fell confterable working this way, probobly because this is my first textureing progect. I like the warm fuzzy felling I get when I can go back and fix somthing, too bad it can turn to rage when things go wroung. I am going to give mouj method a try on my next modle I hope I can find some way to work with a large stacks, but if not then I will just need to plan my stuff out a lot better. Thanks a lot.


:)

[TimWoods]

i wouldnt worry too much when you have collapsed your stack, if there are any errors then just select the faces that need editing and unwrap those faces fix the problem and collapse it again. the important thing to remember is that the information is still there and easy to edit if needs be.
good luck. post the project when its done.
:thumbsup:

[EricChadwick]

Yeah, I was there too in the beginning. I thought "wow, this whole stack history is really cool, I'll use it to keep my work really editable."

But then I got burned afew times. Sub-Object selections can be very picky. Some upper modifiers like Poly Select or Face Select or Volume Select depend on the face count being stable, otherwise their own selection sets can get screwed.

I spent a good amount of time trying to make a fully-editable set of UV gizmos, but in the end it wasn't worth the setup time. And Unwrap is eventually needed anyhow, which kind of "stops" the stack flow.

Anyhow, Tim has the right advice. All the info is in the collapsed model for you to edit later, if need be.

[CJcuervo]

and just as a side note, in case you didnt know this, if you arent using the multi-sub object material at this point, when youre finished mapping all of your IDs you can start with a new material and use the little eyedropper tool to bring all of your Mat IDs into One final multi sub-object material just to make things a bit easier to manage,




CJ

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