Some Hex questions, mainly UV mapping

cheetiot

Hello all. Just wondering if anyone knows anything about these problems I have?

1. Can you lock vertices in hexagon to prevent accidental movement? I ask this mostly for when I'm doing small morphs on geo-grafted parts, and I don't want the outer edge of points to be moved even if a soft selection I'm using reaches them.

2. Does anyone know of any decent tutorials for UV mapping in Hexagon? Primarily I'm looking for how to use pins. I've learned how to use seams, but can't quite figure out exactly how pins control how the map is unfolded, and the Hexagon manual gives me no info at all.

3. In Hex, when using the UV view, is there any way to put a picture in the background? I'm thinking ahead for the time I try and make my own geo-grafted parts. My plan here is to use a template of a UV map that already exists so I can arrange the points of my own part so that they line up to the original UV map and can use the same texture. If this is not possible, can something like Blender do this?

Thanks for any advice.
Cheet

Roygee

No, you can't lock individual verts, only the whole mesh. You just need to work very carefully :) If it's a serious issue, you could note the coordinates of the verts before starting to work, then check to make sure they are where they should be when finished - that would be a real pain, though :)

I don't know of any specific tuts dealing with pinning in Hex. The same principles apply in all UV mapping. Pin two verts on a centre line, one vert in from a seam.

Unfortunately no, you can't load an image as a background in UV view - never thought of it that way, but it could be a very useful feature. I don't know Blender well enough to say yes or no - be interesting to hear from Blender experts on this

ben98120000

1. You can hide polygons you dont wish to be moved, which wont lock them, prevent them from moving, but it will make their edges sort of more visible, more pronounced. So, when you make soft selection, if you select edges of invisible polygons, that would mean that you selected to much. (pic 1)

3. You can use your UV template image as texture image for the material which will than show in UV view if you have Texture option active(pic 2). You will probably have to flip the image vertically in the material setting and increase image visibility in the UV view (slider next to texture option). Also, image will be visible in UV view if you have (whole) faces/polygons selected. When you select edge or point image wont show, so you will probably have to switch between selection modes during UV adjustment.

patience55

Roygee said:

... edit ...

Unfortunately no, you can't load an image as a background in UV view - never thought of it that way, but it could be a very useful feature. I don't know Blender well enough to say yes or no - be interesting to hear from Blender experts on this

You can load an image to show where the "CheckerT" is. Have "nothing" selected and over in the materials tab, tell whatever material is showing, to carry a texture image. Then select the desired .obj and also have the same texture image applied to it. Then being careful to have the uvmap window "active", IN the uvmap window, one can move the dots to the desired locations.

n.b. Because of burps and bits with the program, one might have to start with a freshly opened Hexagon to get the materials showing when "nothing" is selected. Once a material is assigned and Enter is clicked, the group tends to vanish but is really still there ... just showing when .obj is selected. Alternatively when 'nothing' is selected -- one can make a "new" material and apply the texture image to that. Program should be then showing that image instead of the checkers.

Roygee

Seeing what Patience wrote, I recalled a tut from Geekatplay where he shows how to move points on the UV map to match the texture. This was possible in previous versions of Hex, but in the current one, the texture vanishes when selecting points, so I never thought of that method as being very practical.

However, it is possible in UU3D, so I did a bit of an experiment. Mapped and put a texture onto a cube in Hex (when I selected the points, the texture vanished) Exported to UU3D, saved as a new .obj - back into Hex, made a copy, then moved the points on the copy to change how the texture was mapped to the cube, so as to exclude the ankle and it worked just great.

So, a possible solution to the OP's question is to use a dedicated UV mapping app - this would probably work just as well using the free UVMapper or Blender.

cheetiot

Thank you very much for the responses.
You've given me many tricks to play with

Cheet

patience55

Roygee said:

Seeing what Patience wrote, I recalled a tut from Geekatplay where he shows how to move points on the UV map to match the texture. This was possible in previous versions of Hex, but in the current one, the texture vanishes when selecting points, so I never thought of that method as being very practical.

... edit ...

Hmmm ... maybe we've found another bug. Selecting dots to move works on my computer, latest edition of Hexagon.

Roygee

Yep, Hex works in mysterious ways, it's wonders to perform....:)

PS - just tested again on a few different meshes and its now working correctly...then again, yesterday was the 13th :)