Time for some more Mapping Madness – this post will deal with similar subject matter, but also look at how I went about those objects that didn’t need a full unwrap.
So, let’s get started:
In the case of this frame, the workflow was the same as with all the frames, but it turned to be rather tricky to get a nice unwrap on – I ended up having to use Peel, Relax by Edge Angles and Relax by Polygon Angles to get a half-decent result. With symmetrical shells (common for this building – huge amounts of symmetry) I made sure to have them properly mirrored, and rotated each opposing shell equally so that they were in line with the checker pattern.
Another frame element, and probably the one I’m least happy with, UVing wise – the insides of the frames have quite messy UVs (as seen with the checker), but due to being a minor detail that will be mostly obscured by glass, as well as being at the top of the building, it didn’t make much sense to agonise over it.
Another important part of the initial workflow, more obvious here when you look at the modifier stack, is that for complex objects, I would look to start off with a Planar UVW map (equivalent to starting off Maya UVing with a Planar projection) – this sped things up considerably and made the unwrapping stage much easier by giving me a nice starting point to work from.
For objects at an angle, I would make sure to rotate the Gizmo for the UVW Planar map to match them – for models like this I used ‘Normal Align’ to align the map perfectly to a middle face. After hitting ‘Fit’ to size the map appropriately to the model, I made sure to match the map size settings to the largest one – equal dimensions on the map kept the UVs from starting off distorted.
In the case of objects that didn’t require full unwraps – such as glass – I used the Box map on the UVW Map – using Fit to size the map, then looking for the highest measurement and resizing each dimension to that size (in the example above, 1.478m).
The door was another object I used the Box map on – relative to the rest of the model that would be encompassed in the render, it was tiny, and overall, it’s outer form is not overly complex, so despite having nice detailing it did not require a dedicated unwrap.
Whilst this model – the inner dome framework – only has one area which is 100% visible outside (the triangular areas with the highlighted red face), it was by far the most complex model in the scene – much of its purpose being in preventing light leaks, and in the possibility it might be seen partially through windows – and I wanted to take it upon myself to unwrap it well.
Mostly the process was about making sure to define appropriate seams – to really, deeply think about how it could physically unwrap as an object. Once these many shells were broken apart from each other, I did the usual unwrapping processes – depending on which worked best. It took longer than any object by far to map, but it was worth it – I left it feeling much more confident about unwrapping complex forms.
I think that just about wraps it up (honestly, no pun intended, it’s a damn useful phrase) for the UV mapping! The next post will be a straightforward, hopefully not too essay-like summary of the UV mapping workflow I arrived at from this process.
Stuart McInnes 