UV Mapping Settings Window

Use

You can select the type of UV mapping, relaxing and packing to apply to selected objects in the UV Mapping Settings window.

You can establish a number of settings for each type, including the tolerance angle for VAMP mapping, and whether to preserve UV orientation when packing UVs. You might want to do this if you require all the bricks to be stacked in a particular way, for example, horizontally.

In addition, if a model is densely packed, you can establish relaxing options to provide more detail in the densely packed areas. Relaxing unfolds the selected UVs to minimize distortion and smooth UVs within the selected area.

Features

Fields	Functional Description
Mappers	Used to select the type of UV mapping to apply to the selected objects VAMP: Variable Angle Multi-Planar Mapping. Applies a local-planar map to groups of polygons, it directly maps objects using the VAMP tolerance angle. This option is best for complex geometry. We recommend using this method for organic and CAD models. If the model is made from NURB patches, it is also useful to select map by element. Cube: Finds the axis closest to the polygons’ normals and maps them onto the perpendicular plane. That is, it places a cube around each object and maps the section of each object that is closest to a cube side. We recommend using this method for CAD models. Rigid: Unfolds each object to map the UVs. That is, if the UVs were printed onto a piece of paper, you could fold it into the shape of the object. This helps to minimize distortion, but may not unfold each object in quite the same way in which a person would
Packers	Used to select the method of packing the UVs Clump: Packs the UVs into a “clump” in the middle of the UV map. UVs are placed in any available space within the clump, including empty areas within other UVs. For example, if part of a UV map contains an internal hole, a section that does not contain UV mapping, small UVs are placed in this hole. We recommend using this method for most models Note This packing method produces a different result each time you repack the UVs Rectangular: Packs the UVs in a rectangular pattern. We recommend using this method for simple models that you may be painting by hand. Simple: Packs the UVs in a simple pattern. That is, in rows, from the smallest to the largest UV. Note This method may not be the most efficient use of pixel space on a map
Relaxers	Used to provide more detail in a densely packed model None: Relaxing is not required Knead Even: Smooths UVs evenly Knead Aligned: Smooths UVs by aligning them flat with the map Knead Hybrid: Smooths UVs using a combination of kneading evenly and alignment Relax: Adjusts the shape and size of the selected polygons to match the model geometry
Mapping Options	Used to select whether mapping will occur by element, and the type of mapping that will occur Position: Prevents breaking a map across an position boundary Element: Prevents breaking a map across an element boundary Part ID: Maps by part ID.
Map Channel	Assigns a different channel number for more complex mapping. For example, different mapping on a texture (perhaps tiled) and lighting map (untiled). Note The default channel is 0
No Texture Scaling	Determines whether texture scaling takes place.
Material Texture Size	Assigns a texture size
VAMP Options	Used to establish the angle of tolerance for VAMP mapping Tolerance: Determines the angle between the projection plane and the mapped polygon. For example, 0 degrees creates many small UV collections (coplanar polygons are grouped together). Whereas, 90 degrees creates fewer but larger UV collections (large partitions with distorted polygons) to create more chunky UV mapping, with more adjacent triangles.
Packing Options	Used to establish how UVs are packed using the selected packing method Fill space: Spaces the UVs according to the selected Spacing percentage. That is, it re-sizes the partitions to maximize the use of the texture space of the UVs. Preserve orientation: Preserves the UV orientation of the UVs Pack per material: Packs UVs that use the same material, separately. For example, if polygons 1 and 2 use material type A, and polygon 3 uses material B, polygons 1 and 2 are packed separately from polygon 3. Otherwise, polygons 1, 2, and 3 are packed together, sharing the same texture but retaining their own material. Spacing: Determines the spacing between the packed UVs. Usually spacing is about 0.7%. For larger maps, this value can be smaller (the pixels are smaller), but if the value is too small, pixels from one section of the map may bleed into another unrelated section. Note Large spaces may not be possible. For example, 10% spacing is not possible if there are a large number of UVs on a UV map. In this case, the largest possible spacing is used.
Relax Options	Used to establish further options for relaxers Iterations: The number of times that the model is to go through the relax process. Finding more space is an iterative algorithm, so the larger the number, the more relaxed the packing.

Activities

Opening the UV Mapping Settings window

Choose Settings on the UV Mapping toolbar