Useful tip I've just discovered in UV Layout

[Pendraia]

Did the webinar this morning on UV Layout and it was really useful. Lots of tips about things I hadn't discovered. One that I wanted to share as I think it would be really useful is that you can cut and detach the material groups by using the group menu.

The way it works is you click on groups and then materials and you should see your surface groups under materials. If you click on a group and then click detach it will automatically separate that material. You might still need to do some cutting if any of your materials form a tube but it makes it so much easier...

Hopefully this will help someone like me who didn't realise this could be done.

 

[Miss B]

I don't have UV Layout, as I do my UV unwrapping in Blender, but if I'm understanding you correctly, that's similar to "marking seams" in Blender.

I go through each part of a model selecting the desired Edges where I want the pieces to be cut/separated, and then mark those Edges as seams. Then when I unwrap, the pieces are separate, and can be moved around to make a neat UV map.

 

[Pendraia]

Nope it's easier than that... I've always gone in marked the seams and then hit enter which is similar to what you've just described.
Instead just by selecting the group it highlights that group and then clicking detach it automatically marks the edges of that material and separates the group. So no marking of the seams for that group. It's a really cool functions if you want to separate your uv map into the same bits as your materials. It takes about 2 secs to do. You might if it's a cylinder shape need to cut and additional seam...but it depends what your object is. See the image below...all I did was select the material and hit detach. the shoe on the left I've moved further apart so you can see it's been separated.

 

[Miss B]

Ohhhhh, nice! That is an easier way to do it.

 

[Pendraia]

Much easier....it won't work with everything and it will need to have materials set up prior to uv mapping.

I also found a plugin at the uv layout forums that sends from zbrush to uv layout. I'll post a link when I'm properly awake.

 

[DaremoK3]

That's an awesome tip, Penraia. I didn't know that could be done inside of UVL either.

Now I want this functionality inside of Blender, too, and I bet it could be done easily looking into the coding of some of the UV addons.

There is a plugin/addon for sending from Blender to uv layout also. I don't have ZBrush, so I use the Blender one. Works quite well...

 

[Pendraia]

There are a few plugins available....there's one for maya also. A chance comment from Phil Dench about the Maya one set me searching for one for Zbrush.

UVLayout is such a powerful program but I only use such a small part of it normally...certainly worth finding out more than the basics.

I can now get Dawn and V4 into it at the sa me time...and i worked out yesterday how to hide the materials and copy uvs now I just need to work out how to get the uvs the same so I can try and create an alternate uv for Dawn.

 

[DaremoK3]

I did not know you could import two different models into UVL at the same time. Never needed it yet, but thank you, for the info. That is good to know.

I don't envy you with that task. I tried something along those lines once, trying to manually match up uv's.

What UVL needs is an auto-matcher; You select the bounds of each models islands, press a button, and magically, one aligns to the other. Pin boundary, and re-flatten. Instant alternate UV for secondary model.

 

[Pendraia]

I'm thinking I might be able to use copy uvs for some of it. I would just like to be able to use v4 maps on Dawn as easily as i can on genesis. Also I just want to see if I can...

 

[quietrob]

Uv Layout looks remarkable. If the interface works as well as the program looks, I'd be interested despite that steep license price. It looks like it works on props but I was wondering if it works well with triangles rather than squares (or rectangles)?

 

[Pendraia]

It works well from what ive seen. During the webinar he showed us how to easily uv a couch that was a mas of triangles by marking seams by which way the polys were facing.