Hi all
Quick question. If using a program like Mari where you paint straight to the model, does it matter if you just flatten and pack your UVs automatically and paint straight onto them for hard surface models? I mean for things like tanks, trucks, etc, loads of small angular detail that normally takes ages to manually map, is there a downside Im not seeing if I just flatten and pack the UVs in max and work from them ?
you lose any advantages you normally get painting in UV space on a “good” uv map. You are pretty much limited to only working in 3d paint projections. This is a workflow issue though. Technically, there are no problems though.
But if you are painting exclusively in Mari or something similar then I’m guessing there aren’t really any advantages of a good UV map as long as you are painting at a reasonable resolution.
It just means your likely to have problems painting or editing the texture in 2D - ie… photoshop, nuke, after effects, uv view in mari.
Certainly when texture painting, some tasks are easier to achieve in the 2D (UV view) than they are in 3D.
Cheers for all the input guys, I understand that quite often its nice to come to go to 2d for certain tasks and therefore essential that you have proper UVs so for production it makes sense.
However for personal work I just want to be able to add some specific torn edges on some hard modelled objects easily and flattenUVs+Mari seems to be a good/fast solution that avoids using a procedural RAO method as that can really kill render times. I can easily mix this UV set with a tiled projection for other parts of the map so I think I may just give it a shot. I’m guessing it will be a kind of poor mans PTEX 
Is it standard procedure that modellers do UV mapping as well? They usually do it in our company as well. I’ve always wondered about that, since I prefere to do that myself, if I am the one doing the texturing (depending on the complexity of the model of course).
I guess now with 3D paint programs taking over more and more, it’s probably less important.
I’ve seen Mari used in production on “Polygon Soup” UV layouts. It wasn’t ideal but it saved the company in question’s bacon on a quick turn around Job.
I’d still advise having a decent UV layout, but Mari will work on seriously disjoint automatic ones too.
It depends on the company, in some places the modelers do it, others the shaders. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Like for example, often it’s easier to UV things as part of the modeling process. Like if you’re planning on making a twisty tube, it’s easier to apply the uvs before the modeler twists it, and a pain to do after the fact. On the other hand, if you have a pipeline where not everyone uses UVs on every model, then it’s a waste having the modelers make a bunch of good uvs on objects that will never use them. Also, as you pointed out, sometimes the shader needs the uvs to be something specific, and that may not be the same thing the modelers give you.
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