[Bf-funboard] Selection keys and UV maps

Ruth Ivimey-Cook ruth at ivimey.org
Wed Aug 8 13:02:03 CEST 2012


Hi Campbell,

> Normally when modeling buildings I split up geometry so windows 
> wouldnt be in some mesh as other parts of a building, also often you 
> can instance the window frames so you only need to UV map once.
I hadn't thought of doing it this way. I guess you could have a simple 
"hole" in the building where the window was, and then the detail of the 
window surround, the glass and bars as a separate object. Is that what 
you mean?

> Alas - blenders manual isn't up to scratch - but I wouldn't worry 
> about finding this stuff tricky, it might be best if you just post the 
> model, and some UV's you would expect to be simple to map. - If an 
> experienced user can't redo this easily it points to the tools 
> lacking. -- This stuff is hard to explain as text I find. 
Where would be a good place to post something?

I didn't say I expected the UV to be simple, but I would hope that it 
would be easier than I am currently finding it.

I have wondered about going on a course of some sort that would help, 
and have looked around a bit. Have you any suggestions?

>> The change would be to make the UV window a UVW window, i.e. 3D, in
>> exactly the same style as the current 3D window in wireframe or solid
>> mode. The window would use the 3rd dimension to render the
>> faces/vertices that currently aren't flat on UV.
>>
>> You can then see at a glance when you have an issue to resolve and take
>> appropriate action.
>>
>> If you don't resolve things, the map exported and used outside the UV
>> window is the face-on UV map, i.e. the same projection that you get if
>> you look in the 3D window using the "Top Ortho" view.
> Did you use this feature in some other application? - I only ever
> seriously did UV mapping in blender.
No.. it is just what I found myself wishing for when tyring to do things.

Given the rest of what Blender does, it doesn't seem such a hard thing 
to me, :-) :-)  in that Blender already has code to display a 3D mesh, 
to modify said mesh, etc. The issue would be to make internally a new 
mesh derived from the main model and then export it as the UV.

>>> Being able to edit multiple UV's at once would be really nice.
>> Can it be put on the "todo" list at some point. I see many people on
>> lists asking how to do it and being disappointed. It seems (unlike my
>> earlier suggestion) that it ought to be relatively simple, if you go
>> with the "you can only edit one object at once" rule.
> To do this in a general way we need to be able to enter editmode for
> multiple objects at once, this is a fairly big undertaking, so not
> sure listing as a TODO really helps, its more a good feature to have
> and devs are aware of it.
I was hoping that while full multi-object edit mode would be nice, there 
was an intermediate option. When displaying the UV map in edit mode for 
one object, Blender would:
- for the other objects that are mapped to this texture
    - one by one, enter edit mode and cache the UV map (perhaps a 
transparent image would do?)
- for the actually selected object display the cache for the other 
objects on the texture

That would help a lot.

> Sergey Sharybin wrote a script to do this but its not released, such 
> tools are fairly trivial to write but needs to be made into an addon 
> or so - I'll check on this. 

Thanks

Ruth

-- 
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