Pelt Mapping Problem - The stretcher

[Richard]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to learn how to use pelt mapping (in max 2010) so that I can unwrap more difficult shapes as quickly as possible. At the moment I'm working on a cartoon face which is long and thin. I could probably use cylindrical mapping or other approaches here, but I'd prefer to do it through pelt mapping so that I can learn. However, I've hit a stumbling block and perhaps one of you helpful gentlemen could give me a hand.

Following some pelt tutorials for faces, pretty much all of which cover the same instructions, have me drawing seams up through most of the middle of the face, around the ears, mouth and eye sockets. That's what I've done below.





I think these seams would make the face pelt nicely, so I don't reckon there's an issue here. After that I select all the faces of the head I want to include using the "Expand Face Select to Seams" tool.




Now here's where the problem occurs.

When I click Pelt to start the pelt mapping process I come up with the Pelt Map window and my UVW Map window. On all the tutorials I've looked at the pelt stretcher makes a nice circular shape that stretches out the shape from all of the seams. However, for me I seem to get an awkward near-circular shape that only stretches from one of the seam areas, like the left ear or the nostril. This leads to some horrible deformation when I click Start Pelt and Relax.





Is there something I'm doing wrong here? When I click to pelt and relax the face collapses in on itself with lots of unwelcome overlapping. What I'm hoping to achieve is just what every pelt mapping tutorial on the web shows, a face that stretches out correctly and evenly on both sides.

Here's an example of what I'm after. On the third images down the pelt stretcher seems to come out from all of the pelt seams instead of just one part of it.

// Perfect UVs by Pelt Mapping in 3ds Max //

Has anyone else come across this?

[Richard]

Sorry for posting in the wrong section.

[svcoyle]

Have you tried changing the settings on the relax to relax by face angles?

[Richard]

Unfortunately I have, svcoyle. I was hoping that would've been the fix to the problem, bit it doesn't seem to want to work. I'm certain the problem lies in it not recognising some of the seams I've drawn on, but they're definitely there.

Has nobody else ever come across this?



If a mod could move this topic to the relevant section for it, I'd appreciate it. Ta

[Polygoblin]

*thread moved to "Support and Tech Discussion"

[Talon]

Pelt mapping is frankly useless for actual unwrapping.

I find the best method is to use Pelt so you get something in your UV Editor window that has the seams you want. So, turn on Pelt, hit Start, wait half a second, hit Stop, turn off Pelt. You should now have something that's probably a wreck but is sort of stretched out and it has the seams you were after.

Then select it all and run Tools > Relax on it, using either Face Angles or Edge Angles (I find Face works better 90% of the time) until you get something useful. If it seems to be taking a long time or having issues, turn the Amount up to 1 and Spring to 0.1 then give it another blast. You can turn those values back to 0.1 and 0 respectively once it's got most of it relaxed and run it at that to refine the unwrap a little more.

For some reason, the relax in the Pelt dialog and the relax in the Tools > Relax dialog seem to work differently. I always get better results using the Tools > Relax dialog, so try using that instead.

[Piflik]

Don't add seams to the eye sockets and ears. Pelt Mapping has problems finding the 'right' seam to use if there are multiple...but in general Talon is exactly right...Pelt Mapping is useless most of the time.

[Suraci]

Is there a way of reporting these spammers, aka effowsDealf? :|

[Polygoblin]

Originally Posted by Suraci

Is there a way of reporting these spammers, aka effowsDealf? :|

Yeah, I removed them. Sorry, these little buggars slip through the cracks of our approval system and are being quite a pest lately Feel free to report any spammers to me directly (or any other admins)