triple_r wrote:

 > Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
 >
 >> I am a little reluctant to comment here since I have yet to produce a
 >> uvmapped result of professional quality but here is the direction I've
 >> gone in fwiw.
 >
 >
 >
 > That's alright.  I have yet to produce... much of anything.
 >
 >
 >> The thing I like to do is to export the unsmoothed cage to Uvmapper (via
 >
 >
 > .... (no reason to quote the whole thing)
 >
 > Maybe it's my problem then because I can't figure out how to get 
UVMapper to
 > do more than display the points and faces.  I can move faces around, but
 > then they just sit there, disconnected from the rest of the mesh.


Yes, that is the behavior.  With "face selection" the selected geometry 
is detached.  You need to use "point selection".  That allows you to 
"pull" the points around thereby stretching and unfolding the geometry 
and hopefully gain a more favorable allignment between the poly and the 
texture.



  The

 > weld, etc. commands don't seem to do anything (it's the mac version 
if that
 > makes a difference.)


Afaik the weld will rejoin points where the projection had separated 
them. In effect, the projection created duplicate points in separate 
places for what is really a common vertex.  These points should be 
highlighted in green when the mating points are selected.  I think they 
need to be dragged into proximity with each other, selected, then welded.


It's probably pretty obvious that the solution is to

 > uv-map right away when it's not too complex rather than at the end.


I think it makes sense to work with the "cage" rather than the smoothed 
mesh when establishing the uv's, as I described before.  It is simpler, 
and conceptually you are still in the manual phase.  Once you smooth the 
mesh it is usually too complex to be dragging points, and anyway, now it 
is a mechanically derived thing.  The trick is to get the model, with 
uv's applied, back into another program for smoothing.  As I said, to do 
this in Wings the model needs to be a single group or else Wings will 
try to make separate objects out of each group, usually to deleterious 
result.  Once the model is smoothed in Wings, it can be reloaded into 
Uvmapper and the projection will correspond to the shape of the one you 
generated previously.


  I

 > think that's my whole problem in the first place.  I held off though 
since
 > the last thing I did was to break the virtual mirror in Wings3D so I only
 > had to work on half of the model.  UV mapping before it is actually
 > mirrored seems pointless.  By that time the model is complex enough 
that I
 > couldn't have done it symmetrically without a virtual mirror, but too
 > complex to feasibly shift vertices around by hand in the small window 
of UV
 > Mapper or the painfully slow AutoUV of Wings3D.  Is there a simple 
solution
 > to this dillema?  Do regions and materials make it that much easier?  Is
 > the map discontinuous then?


Well, shifting the points is always a tedious process but as long as you 
are still in manual phase you shouldn't have made insurmountable 
complexity.  I believe it has been my practice to apply the uv's fairly 
early on once the princple shapes and components are established, and 
before I add a lot of detail, then import back into Wings and continue 
working.  When I work I usally freeze and reapply the mirror frequently 
and I believe the uv's are retained but I cannot test this claim at the 
moment. I am rebuilding my system and have not yet put uvmapper back. 
Maybe I will get to it later tonight.


 >
 > My other problem with UVMapper is the inefficiency.  The file below shows
 > the .obj output from UVMapper.  Four vertices (v) and four normals (vn)
 > went in, four vertices, four normals, and nine uv vectors (vt) came out?!
 > Notice the duplication.  It doesn't even use the first, fifth, or ninth
 > uv-vector (the middle indices in the face list).  So in the end, it uses
 > six of nine vectors where only four are necessary.  This doesn't 
happen at
 > all if I do it myself.  This isn't a big problem since the final 
result is
 > the same, but for large meshes, that can slow things down a bit.  Not 
that
 > I'm in a huge hurry, but I still have things to be doing...  Why 
would they
 > do this?
 >
 >  - Ricky
 >
 > # file generated by UVMapper
 > # NumVerts/NumTVerts/NumVNormals/NumFacets   4/9/4/2
 > # NumGroups/NumMaterials/NumRegions   1/1/0
 > # x/y/color/ppu   640/320/0/1.00000000
 >
 > v -0.80512398  0.21356300  0.76134598
 > v -0.78923601  0.30919600  0.77591699
 > v -0.77485198  0.29935700  0.81732601
 > v -0.78485203  0.22935700  0.80732602
 >
 > vt -0.38052213  1.00000000    <--unused
 > vt  0.46231049  0.02500000
 > vt  0.97499996  0.48888922
 > vt  0.02500000  0.97499996
 > vt -0.38052213  1.00000000    <--unused
 > vt  0.46231049  0.02500000    <--unnecessary
 > vt  0.97499996  0.48888922    <--unnecessary
 > vt  0.46231043  0.69265592
 > vt -0.38052213  1.00000000    <--unused
 >
 > vn  0.83070999  0.46008500  0.31343701
 > vn  0.84070998  0.47008500  0.32343701
 > vn  0.89709097 -0.42746699 -0.11180300
 > vn  0.79720998  0.25963601 -0.54501897
 >
 > g Figure 1
 > usemtl cube2_auv
 > f 1/2/1 2/3/2 3/4/3
 > f 1/6/1 2/7/2 4/8/4
 >
 >
 >


Interesting.  Can't help you there though I know there are several 
utilities in the program that I haven't yet explored the purpose of.

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