Successful UV Unwrap inside Sketchup!
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@kaas said:
@JQL You don't think its more fast and easy to just export the object to Blender, do an unwrap there and import the obj into SketchUp again?
It is! That's pretty clear...
But before I tried this I didn't really understand what the hell was happening...
I don't master blender, not even close, so I had almost no control of what I was doing, I had almost no notion of what was happening and I was't getting any useable results. So I also didn't understand exactly what was UV unwrapping.
Now I do, and this was the first time I managed to unwrap exactly how I was imagining things to be.
With this Unwrap method inside Sketchup I manage the following things:
- Texture the way I want to with the tools I happen to be confortable with;
- Wich means texturing as I please using Sketchup and an Image Editor;
- Model in Sketchup and export directly from sketchup to Substance;
- Remodel my unwrapped meshes in Sketchup knowing what I have to do to keep UV mapping, rebuild it or simply ignore it...
I was hoping these dablings could also poke someone to further take on this exploration and develop an UV unwrapper for Sketchup, inside Sketchup...
I already have a Lot of ideas of how it should work and what other features it should have.
I'm seeing Huge potential workflows using only native tools and Substance...
Obj Out Obj In wouldn't give me such control...
But now I know what I'm doing, I really know when I should use Blender for Export/UV Unwrap/Import and when I can stick with SU.
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Several years ago I made this proof of concept:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=180%26amp;t=39198 -
Pixero, I didn't know about that, will you ever push it forward?
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I think I have taken it as far as my ruby skills go.
Hopefully someone could build upon my idea and implement a better unwrapping algorithm.
There is code available for unwrapping that might be possible to convert to ruby.
Feel free to use the code if you want. -
Even though I'd love to, I'd first have to learn Ruby from scratch and for that I'd need free time.
I've got no free time on my hands... I've found this way to unwrap and I've got Blendup so I can do both simple and complex unwrapping spending way less time than developing a full plugin.
I think this could be a job for some skilled developer and preferably someone that as dealt with geometry unwrapping or texturing plugins...
What I could easily do is suggest UI or Worflow suggestions, but even there, I think there are people that are far more used to this than I am. I've just found a way to do exactly what I wanted, and even if I could have even better ways to do it, I think that is enough for me.
I'm probably doing a Tut on this one of these days.
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And there you go.
A quick trip from Sketchup to Substance Painter and back to Sketchup...
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I tried another procedure wich relates texture and geometry.
Instead of having Unwrapped faces I've acomplished Unwrapping components.
What this allows is a component face to be edited and when that happens it get's changed in the geometry attached to the 2d map.
You can then scale it rotate it and position it on the map as you will, and then adapt the map to fit the altered component.
Here's a chanfered model created with a projected texture on the 6 components. As I alter the component's shape the texture keeps projected an UV unwrapped. If I alter the component's perimeter, I have to alter the texture afterwards using, redrawing the square, intersecting square face with components and painting the projected texture on the new faces. Then recombine textures and reproject them on component's faces.
I know it's hard to master and convuluted, but it opens up new possibilities.
The plugin I used to Unwrap components is Flattery... it can make all components Unwrap and in that simple box it took only two moves! Only after unwrapping components as faces did I alter the components to be solids with chamfered edges...
Exporting to any format gets a map perfectly unwrapped.
Here's the model to try yourselves:
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@jql said:
A quick trip from Sketchup to Substance Painter and back to Sketchup...
Care to share a step-by-step guide how you managed to achieve this...?
Looks great...!Have you tried more complex geometry...?
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@frederik said:
@jql said:
A quick trip from Sketchup to Substance Painter and back to Sketchup...
Care to share a step-by-step guide how you managed to achieve this...?
Looks great...!Have you tried more complex geometry...?
Yes I did, and a VERY VERY improved workflow using components for faces!
This is becoming unbelievably simple.
The Step by Step guide is definetelly on my plans, but I'm getting deeper and deeper on possibilities and tests!
It's amazing what we can achieve using just sketchup if you know how everything is connected, and also, doing the wrong thing it's incredible how everything fails.
Basically let me tell you that Blender seems the devil but it's actually your friend even if you think it's not, while Sketchup looks very friendly and nice, but is a damn liar! All Sketchup want's is for you to be happy but ignorant, while blender shows the world as it is!
When you want to know something important, Sketchup is a father that sits with you at the playground telling you about the birds and the bees and while Blender is the kind of father that talks to you about sex...
Sketchup facilitates things so much that you won't realize what you can achieve by yourself!
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Well... when you take it out of context... It seems really bad!
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Hello,
I was wondering how you can get thomthom's pseudo-quads to export as quads with fbx or obj files?
I tried all the export options in sketchup; I always get tris in the other 3D softs... -
With QF installed you use the File > Export to export to QF obj.
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Thanks Rich!
Worked indeed!
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