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42.3 UV Maps - DeepUV v1.2, Advanced Features 1 |
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DEEPUV, ADVANCED UV MAPPING TECHNIQUES In this tutorial I will show the more advanced UV Mapping functions in DeepUV. As with the Deep Paint 3D example, where i used the most difficult possible object to draw on to test the 'Automatic Map' feature of DeepUV... this Tutorial will use a LightWave object which is extremely difficult-to-map, Deinonychus the Dinosaur. Deinonychus is so hard to map because he doesn't have straight tubes for arms or legs, and he has very intricate fingers and toes. His body is not a simple cylindar, and the large open mouth has intricate surfaces so I won't just be able to do a 'Sphere' map on it. It almost goes without saying that DeepUV's 'Automatic Map' will be useless in this case. I run DeepUV v1.2.0.7 and load the Deinonychus .lwo. DEEPUV, CHECKERBOARD MATERIAL ' I right-click in the 'Perspective' viewport and choose 'Material Override'. 
I always use a checkerboard pattern when I'm creating UV Maps. You want all of your maps for a particular surface, such as the 'Body' surface, to have a consistent checkboard pattern when you're done. To create a checkerboard pattern, go to the 'Scene' tab in the 'Command Panel'. 
Under the 'View Settings' area, click 'Small Gray Tile' 
Because I haven't, as yet, created UV Maps, there is no change in the viewports. The 'Body' surface is the most important surface, so I'll do that first. DEEPUV, MATERIALS LIST To select the 'Body' surface, I go to the 'Materials' tab. 
The 'Materials List' contains every surface name for the object. 
I double-click the gray square to the left of where it says 'Body' to select body polygons. It doesn't like taking double-clicks in this menu, so sometimes you need to do this as many as four times before they become selected. If any polygons were already selected, it will ADD the Body polygons to the selected polygons, so make sure all polygons are de-selected by choosing 'Select->Deselect' or press CTRL-d before you use the Materials List to select polygons. DEEPUV, SIZING / POSITIONING / ROTATING I select the perspective view by clicking in it, select the 'Rotate' tool, click and drag to the left to rotate the body. Without selecting another tool, I hold SHIFT-CTRL and drag left and right to center the body. Still without selecting another tool, I hold the right button and drag up or down to zoom the body. IMPORTANT - Using only the 'Zoom Tool', you can size, rotate, and reposition your object. 
Before I do anything, I first try 'Automatic Mapping' from the 'Mapping' tab of the 'Command Panel'. You should always try it. Then, if you find that, with just some tweaking, they'll work then you won't need to spend hours creating UV Maps. But, we all know that robotic methods never give you the best of anything. Strange things appear in the 'Material' viewport. If you ever don't see what you think you ought to be seeing when you look there, it is probably showing you the wrong material. Computers don't read minds (although programmers should TRY and read our minds. Here, for example, couldn't the programmer automatically select the Body material in the Material window the instant I select 'Body' from the Materials List?) But no, I have to right-click the Material window and choose 'Body' from the 'Materials' drop-down menu before I can see the body material in that window. IMPORTANT - If you don't see what you think you should see in the Materials view, the wrong material is probably selected. The body is badly fragmented. 
Each time you cut polygons from each other, paint won't flow smoothly. Ideally, you'd end up with one complete hide, cut off and flattened. In the world of UV, that's rarely possible, but that's what you're trying to achieve. Luckily, DeepUV has a FANTASTIC undo tool. I'm not even sure it has a limit. I undo until the UV Map disappears. DEEPUV, INITIAL UNWRAPPING OF BODY I must ensure that every polygon in the body surface ends up having a UV Map. The way I can do that, I can give some overall map to the body before I start cutting it apart. That way, it will start with a complete UV Map for every polygon, and I'll subtract and redo essential areas. Any stray polygons which may remain behind will at least have a map associated with them. For the initial UV mapping, I must use a UV method which does the least amount of polygon cutting. If you check each of the automatic mapping methods, all cut an object's polygons. DEEPUV, INTERACTIVE MAPPING Although many like the AutoMapping and VAMP features, I like the interactive section. You'll find that the only interactive mapping technique which doesn't cut the object is 'Plane'. In my case, a side view might be handy. When you are choosing an interactive unwrapping mode, you should first select the 'Rotate' tool, as it is the handiest tool when you're interactivly unwrapping. When any interactive tool is chosen, a yellow gadget appears. Almost always, the next button you'll click will be the 'Selection' button. This automatically centers the interactive tool, using the currently selected polygons as the boundary. In this particular case, when adjusting a plane's angles, it's easier to use the 'Angle' controls rather than the gadgets in the Graphic User Interface. In my case, an angle of 270 for X and 90 for Z will project a sideview image as a UV Map. 
The yellow gadget adjusts to accomodate. 
The body's UV Map looks drastically different than when I did the automatic map. 
I press ESC to exit the plane mapper and finalize the map. DEEPUV, INTERACTIVE POLAR MAPPING Polar Mapping is well-suited for unwrapping heads. A Polar map is like a spherical map, but it leaves a hole at the bottom of the sphere for the neck to poke through. I press a lower-case 'L' to select the 'Lasso Tool'  , clicking the perspective view to select that viewport, then press SHIFT-L for the Left View.I select the 'Zoom' tool  , zooming the head so it fills the view. Since I mapped the body as a plane, you can now see the checkerboard pattern.
I press a lower-case 'L', again, for the 'Lasso Tool' .So the polygons on the right side of his face will also be selected when I use the 'Lasso Tool', I select 'Back Faces'. 
I make sure that 'Point Selection Mode' is the mode. 
With the left mouse button I draw a circle around his head, being careful to draw in-between the row of neck vertice points. 
One stray vertice point below the neckline has become selected, so I hold ALT down and draw a circle with the lasso tool around that vertice point to deselect it on both sides of his face. If I accidently deselect vertice points that I wish to include, I hold SHIFT, drawing a circle around the points I wish to add to the selection. I can automatically enter the 'Orthographic' mode from the 'Left View' by selecting the 'Rotate Tool'  .If I click with the left mouse button and drag left or right like I normally would in Perspective or Orthographic mode to rotate the object, Orthographic mode is automatically picked for me and it rotates (good going, programmers). Every surface of his head has been selected, however, besides just the 'Body' part of his head. If I didn't deselect the other materials, whatever tool I would use would create a material map for those materials, at the same time (possibly creating cuts where I don't want cuts to be). DEEPUV, DESELECTING SURFACES FROM A SELECTION I go to the 'Materials' tab in the 'Command Panel', hold the ALT key down to subtract from the selection, and double-click each material I don't wish to include in this mapping. That includes Lips, Roof, Tongue, Inner Nose, Inner Ear, Teeth, Cornea and Eyeball. As I double-click each one, each subtraction turns pink (instead of deselecting). 
This is very important. If the program just deselected the other materials, when you used the unwrapping tool on the head, it would cut the head away from the lips. Doing it the way they did it, the pink indicates that those points will still be physically connected between the points on the body, and the points on the other material layers. When I click 'Polar' in the 'Interactive' area of the 'Unwrapping' section, no maps appear for the Lips, Tongue, etc. However, the body's selected head also isn't being affected by the polar map (which, theoretically, it should). However, the minute I move the polar gadget, the mapped head appears in the Material window (with 'Body' selected, of course). In the 'Left View', I use the blue dot to move the polar sphere left and right. 
I use the red dot to move the polar sphere up and down. 
I use the green rotation gadget... 
... to rotate the polar sphere so the flat area (representing the polar sphere's hole) is perpendicular to his neck. 
In the Material view, the head now looks quite strange. 
I select the 'Move Tool'  . It moves UVs in the UV View.If I click on the red UV with the left mouse button, and drag, the rubber-band lines indicate that the neck of the body is still attached to the neck of the UV (as indicated by the blue lines all around the polar UV, which are actually polygons from the Planar map). 
I press CTRL-z to undo the move. DEEPUV, PROBLEM AREAS Whenever you use an Unwrapping tool, there are few cases where the UV map will be able to be used without modification. 
A closeup of the chin shows two types of problems. UV polygons in the green square are too tangled and compact. UV Polygons in the blue square overlap. First, lets review what a UV map is. Each point on the UV Map will represent a point on the 3D sculpture. If any place on a UV map isn't representing just one polygon, but two or more polygons, then when you paint on one polygon, it will paint on that area of the image... and when you paint on the other polygon it will also paint on that area of the image overwriting the other paint. So, this is what you are using DeepUV for. DeepUV allows you to unwrap all polygons so all four points of every polygon on the model is laid flat. DEEPUV, RELAXING UVs? The very first thing you might try doing after you've created a UV map, and see imperfections, is click 'Advanced Relax'. 
It brings up the 'Advanced Relax' requester. 
The top three 'UV Knead' buttons will spread out, or relax, UVs without affecting or moving the edge points. All three help order the vertice points better. The 'Hybrid' mode sometimes will cause polygons to overlap each other, rather than relax, so beware. 'Even' is probably the most popular method. I click 'UV Knead - Even' and the UVs separate from each other with equal spacing. 
On the left is the original, on the right is what it looks like after just one treatment with 'UV Knead - Even'. Particularly around the chin, it's helped. It does little to relieve either of the two bunching problems, so far. I'll be using this tool in more delicate ways many more times before I'm done. The tangle and overlap on the right side of the selected area needs an area to expand into. I'll stretch the left side of the selection, but will have to have the blue vertice points which correspond with the body move with them too. I SHIFT and draw a circle around the left half of the selection, including any blue dot ending up with a selection which includes all left-side blue vertice points (which are actually attached to the map of the side-view of the body). I zoom out so I'll have room, then press CTRL-t to enter the 'Free Transform' tool. I drag the left-hand center of the transform area to widen the selection, then press ESC to have it take the change. 
I select the 'Lasso Tool' , hold the ALT key down so the points I select will deselect, and draw a circle around the points on the right-side of the selection.
I select the 'Move Tool' , and move the selected UV polygons to the left, opening up room.
In the next image, the four selected rows that you see, I selected each row one-row-at-a-time using the 'Lasso Tool'. After selecting one row, I'd move it using the 'Move Tool' until it was more equally spaced. Then, I'd do the second row, the third and the fourth in the same manner until they looked like this: 
I switch to 'Component Selection Mode'. 
I pick the 'Polygon Selection Tool'  , clicking it with the left mouse button somewhere inside the head UVs.To better spread out the UVs, I again choose 'UV Knead- Even'. 
I zoom in on the chin, switch to 'Select Vertice Points Mode', selecting these vertice points with the 'Lasso Tool'. 
This time, I set an 'Area Greed' of 20, then click the 'Advanced Relax' requester's 'Relax' button. 
Oftentimes, you might wish to move just one or two vertice points. To do that, just enter the 'Point Selection Mode', select the points you wish to move with the 'Polygon Wand Selection Tool' Press 'v' to enter the 'Move Tool', then move the point, or points. I keep my left hand poised with my index finder on the 'w' (wand tool) and thumb on the 'v' (move tool). In that way I can enter the wand tool, highlight the vertice point, press 'v', move the point, press 'w', highlight another point, press 'v', move the point... The best way to move individual points, though, is using just the 'Move Tool'. Probably the best way to move individual vertice points, though, is with the 'Move Tool' when nothing is selected (red). Press CTRL-d to make sure that nothing is selected. It doesn't matter what mode you're in (Point Select Mode, Polygon Select Mode, Component Select Mode, etc.), the 'Move Tool' moves on vertice point at a time. The screen refresh is quite instantanous. You just point the Move Tool at the vertice point, hold the left mouse button and drag the point to a new place. IMPORTANT - If nothing is selected you can move individual points with the 'Move Tool' no matter what mode you're in. But, in this case, since I have two points I wish to move at once, I'll select the points, then use the move tool. After that last relax command, one polygon at the bottom of the selection became overlapped with another, so on the left I selected the two vertice points, and on the right I moved them. 
Next, I'll relax the right-hand side of the head's UV. Using the 'Lasso Tool', I select the points which are overlapping and tight. 
From the 'Advanced Relax' requester, I set the 'Area Greed' to 100 (amount to relax), click 'Relax' twice, then click 'UV Knead - Even' twice. 
When I zoom in, I can now see the inside of his nostrils. They'll be the hardest to flatten because they're two tubes which cross each other. Besides that, though, the nose is now nicely flattened. 
When I look closely at the other two bunches, they are his eyelids. They shouldn't be too hard to untangle. 
With the 'Lasso Tool', I select the most affected vertice points, do three 'Relax' with 'Area Greed' set at 100, then do two 'UV Knead - Even'. 
I just have to move these three vertice points to finish flattening that eye. 
Unfortunately, when I do the other eye, there's still a lot of overlap. I highlight a narrower area, now that it's been unwrapped a bit, again doing a successive 'Relax' three times, then 'UV Knead - Even' three times. So, one secret of untangling a mess is to highlight as tightly as you can the vertice points that are affected. Alternate between applying 'Relax', with an 'Area Greed' of 100, then do multiple 'UV Knead - Even'. When the amount of change starts to become un-noticeable, reselect a tighter area, and alternate the two techniques again. Any remaining overlaps can be fixed by hand by singly moving vertice points with the alternating 'Wand Tool' / 'Move Tool' method I described. After doing this much more aggressive relax on the other eye, the last remaining three points are done manually. 
Next, I'll tackle the tangled nostrils. I select the intricate nose vertice points. 
I do ten 'Relax', with an 'Area Greed' of 100, until I see no more change when I do it. Then, I do two 'UV Knead - Even', but on the second try little happens. At this point, alternating between the two does little besides shift it back and forth between two different alignments. Therefore, I try redefining the area of mess tighter by highlighting less points. A point is reached, however, where no more change occurs. This is as good as I can do using this technique, highlighting both nostrils at once. 
So, I concentrate on one nostril now. 
I'm starting to be able to see the points, and how they relate, though. I should be able to untangle that a bit, then try the technique again after I've gotten it untangled a little. Be warned, though, that after unwrapping manually, using 'Relax' with a high value will generally warp it worse. Using 'UV Knead - Even' always helps, though. After wrangling with dots, I finally untangled some of them, leaving a lot that still were all tight and mixed up. I select them, again doing the last attempt at alternation leaving this last tight ball of garbage. 
To untangle this last little tangle is very similar to untangling string. You untangle them line-by-line, moving them one-by-one with the 'Wand Tool / Move Tool' method. When it's gotten too tangled to understand (with only a bit left, that is), the first step is to order what you do know, backing off all vertice points so you have an area to work in. Here, the selected points have all been moved one-by-one using the 'Wand Tool / Move Tool' tactic. 
Gradually draw-away all points which make sense to you. Remember that large areas which have no lines between them are holes through the material, thus, you are trying to back all points away from the hole. The end result must be that not even one line crosses another. When you've gotten there, you win. That's how the game is played. 
I fight the other nostril back to this level: 
This is where 'UV Knead - Even' tends to do well. One application gives: 
And, after backing off each point, ordering them into rows... 
I try doing the same thing with the earhole. 
But, the computer seems as confused as I am, how to untangle that mess. When I highlight the area, alternating, it instantly does nothing. I carefully hand-select every point which doesn't seem to be the underlying mesh, then try the alternation method, which at least untangles it a little. It seems that the selected points are too big for the background points so I choose 'Edit->Transform->Scale By 33%' to drop the points in size by a third of what they were. 
DEEPUV, SAVING FROM DEEPUV All that I've done so far would be lost if I didn't save it. However, DeepUV started out as a plug-in for Deep Paint 3D called 'Texture Weapons'. DeepUV was never intended to be a full program in its own right, and really isn't. If you did a 'Save' and saved it as a LightWave object, you'd imagine that you would save all that you'd done and it would be able to preserve the UV Maps you created but that isn't true. To preserve the UV Maps, you have to pass the information to Deep Paint 3D. So, lets do that. As I mentioned in the last tutorial, I close any project that's currently running in Deep Paint 3D, return to DeepUV and go 'File->Export->Paint With Deep Paint 3D'. After working, it switches to Deep Paint 3D and the 'Material Import requester appears. 
Up where it says 'Object #0', the UV shows that there are UV Maps associated with the object. The checkerboard pattern indicates that a material is available for at least some part of the object. In the 'Material' section, the lack of checkerboards to the left of each Surface Name indicates that no physical image file is yet associated with a material. When I click in the gray area to the left of the 'Body' surface, a 'Set Material Size' requester appears. I choose 512 x 512 pixels for all materials but the 'Body', which I choose 2048 (powers of two). 
Next to where it says 'No Map' I click 'C' for the color channel on each of the surface names. 
I choose 'Nothing' for each image. After completing all materials, a checkerboard pattern appears beside each image indicating that each now has a material associated with it (Still, no actual image has yet been created, though). 
I click 'OK'. After it is done, since I always begin in Projection Paint mode, I turn Projection Paint off so I can save it as a project file. I do 'File->Save As...' The default, strange enough, is 'RH3 Scene File (*.rh3)'. I switch the 'Save As' type to 'Deep Paint 3D Project Files (*.dp3)', type a filename and add .dp3 at the end of the name. It will create a folder in the directory you picked (I always put it in the 'C:\Program Files\Right Hemisphere\Deep Paint 3D\Examples\' folder) and will tack on .dp3 onto the end of the folder name, then it will create all files it needs inside that folder. Wouldn't it be nice if DeepUV had a 'Save As...' 'Deep Paint 3D Project File'? It would feel far less like you're always going to lose what you worked on. 
... click 'NO', then when the Material Import requester appears, click 'OK'. It will load the meshes and enter Projection Paint (if you have set that option). Your object should reappear. Realize, though, that all special features of your LightWave object are now gone. It didn't pass the LightWave object to Deep Paint 3D, it just passed the UV information and mesh data to the program, thus things like skelegons, weight maps, etc. are all gone now and in no manner can be easily retrieved. After you've created images, though, the pass back and forth between the two programs is more complete. If you now close everything down (both programs) and load Deep Paint 3D, when it asks... When you exit from Projection Paint, the 'Map' button should become unghosted. Making sure that all DeepUV files are closed, Click 'Map'. 
This is the only place I've ever seen Windows XP give a blue screen. Horrible crashes can occur right at this moment, so before you click 'Map', shut down any other running programs to free up as much available RAM as possible. You should reboot your system first, too. Again, this is an example of a company who's making us pay for their Beta testing. Still, DeepUV is the best thing out there for doing UV Mapping. DEEPUV, FIGURING OUT HOW TO UNWRAP THE BODY When doing UV, you'll always have to do some thinking. Photoshop can help during this process. In either Deep Paint 3D or DeepUV, rotate the object to a view which you think might help when planning your UV cuts. Copy the screen to the clipboard by pressing 'Print Screen', switch to Photoshop and press CTRL-n and agree to the size. Crop the image of your object. Create a layer for drawing red lines, pick red, pick the pencil and start drawing seams. You might have to grab more than one angle. Think through the process in your head, as well. The thing you're trying to do is come up with the most unbroken method you can of cutting the hide apart that will leave the least number of cuts using the tools at hand. The more unbroken sections you have, though, the more unbalanced the UV Map will be. For example, the way I've done his head, being all one piece, has given more detail to his neck than to his nose or the top of his head. And, it's always the case that the easiest method is also the method that creates the most cuts. Every time you make a cut, the painting will look worse at that seam. Thus, try to hide seams in places that won't be visible such as the inside of arms, inside or back of legs, armpits, etc. In this case, it would be nice if I could preserve his back from neck to tip of tail. After sketching, you'll have a better understanding how you'll with to cut your UV Maps. In DeepUV, if I were to look at the checkerboard projection from the side, it would seem like it's already perfect and that I'm already done. 
... but, with a planar map there'll be a line down his back because it's like you're projecting an image from a movie projector upon the object. Steep angles will smear, til at a 90 degree angle to the 'projector', a few pixels would be smeared all the way across the back. 
There would also be a line down his stomach. The fronts and backs of his legs would be smeared and the inside of both legs would look horrible. Planar maps are good for beginning a model in DeepUV so you don't miss polygons, and for doing flat objects such as books or tabletops, but they're seldom good for modeling an organic object (Tops and bottoms of hands are sometimes exceptions if you're rushed for time). After doing some sketches, I have an idea of what I'll try. | ||
