[Plugin] UV Toolkit

thomthom

Q - Is there an additional plugin that I need to take all the parts of a model and flatten them out to a 2D-plane in preparation of UV Mapping? I need to create a single diffuse (texture) image which contains all of the model parts so that i may be altered later using a graphics/paint application.

UV Unwrapping is not something that exists for SketchUp yet. But Whaat has created a plugin that bridges SketchUp with third party mapping utilities. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=23725

@hgagne said:

Q - Where can I find the sample "UV" image that appears in your YouTube demo at Post 1? I looked in the .\images folder and did not see it. Tried finding a "checkered" or "color grid" pattern and haven't had much success on that front either. I'm guessing these mapping images aren't standard issue.

It's a map I created my self. You can find better ones if you google for UV mapping test textures.

TestTile - UV.png

hgagne

@thomthom said:

UV Unwrapping is not something that exists for SketchUp yet. But Whaat has created a plugin that bridges SketchUp with third party mapping utilities. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=23725

It's a map I created my self. You can find better ones if you google for UV mapping test textures.

I've been experimenting with UVTools & UVToolkit since I posted my question and starting to build a comfort level. Appreciate the quick response, UV Map, and link to UVTools.

Best,

KarinaGM

I've just downloaded the plugin and I get this error when I open SU
Also my tools (the icons) are a mess, spread all over the screen :S
and even the tools I don't have in the bar, because I rarely use them, are showing...

Rich O Brien

Have you installed TT_Lib 2? That error seems to indicate it's not able to locate it?

KarinaGM

@unknownuser said:

Have you installed TT_Lib 2? That error seems to indicate it's not able to locate it?

Nope, I installed and I don't get the error now
Now I have to learn to use it
Thanks for the fast response

Rich O Brien

Quick question...

After mapping to quad faces I decided to 'Save As' on the mapped component. When I looked in my Components folder there were lots of images of each mapped quad. Is this normal?

thomthom

eh..? no... that sounds like bad voodoo...

Rich O Brien

Sorry, I'm having difficulty with this and Thea

Gaieus

Is this the issue with those faces you triangulated later?

thomthom

You get those texture files immediately after you use UV-Tools - or when you go to Render..?

Rich O Brien

@unknownuser said:

Is this the issue with those faces you triangulated later?

Yes

@unknownuser said:

You get those texture files immediately after you use UV-Tools - or when you go to Render..?

I get those if I Fit to Quad Faces within a component then 'Save As' that component to the Component Library. Though I done it twice by accident I can't repeat it now? So let's forget this for now.

But here's what is happening between UV'ing and exporting to Thea.

[a] Fit to Quads
[b] Export (Hierarchy On), UVs get messed
[c] Export (Hierarchy Off), Lots of textures appear in Thea

I'll continue to investigate the 'Save As' issue i HAD...

Gaieus

Here's the Thea topic (just answered there myself):
http://www.thearender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=5665

TT, I could not find that topic where you (and others) compared different render engines and how they distort skewed materials.

Rich O Brien

I'm not following that tut you mentioned. So I'm not making these unique. I'm doing something out of sequence though?

Gaieus

No, sorry, I have corrected myself in the Thea thread.

thomthom

@gaieus said:

TT, I could not find that topic where you (and others) compared different render engines and how they distort skewed materials.

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=23947

Basically, from this thread it appear render engines for SketchUp do one of two things:

They access the low-level triangulated polygon mesh in SketchUp and sample UV co-ordinates for each triangle vertex. This leads to distorted textures being rendered incorrectly because distorted textures requires 4 UV points. (Unscaled, Scales, Stretched and Skewed works fine however.)
They check for distorted textures on faces and export a unique bitmap for each face. This leads to an array of textures/materials in the destination render. It also produce incorrect UV's if the material is layered. As the distorted SketchUp texture is converted into a non-distorted texture. If the render engine user use multiple layers for that material, they won't line up with because the additional texture resources used isn't transformed like the distorted SketchUp texture is. (At least I've not seen any engines that does this.)

So none of the solution is ideal - but one can often get away with it without noticing the flaws if the geometry or texture projection isn't too extreme.

Gaieus

Thanks. I was looking everywhere BUT the Dev forum.

Rich O Brien

Thanks guys, that explained a great deal. I'll use UU3D to map the arch instead.

Gaieus

You can use the other method of texturing an arch with UV Toolkit I posted here. That works with Thea.

Also Tgi3D Amorph should work (the same way: remember > restore UV's).

Rich O Brien

But the arch is already bent. Trying to reverse engineer would be hassle. Unless i'm not thinking straight

Gaieus

Yes, that's true. This is why I am also urging TT to finish that feature where you could simply make a straight piece (with the same amount of segments), texture it then copy UV's and paste UV's onto the other face (which can be curved).

But everything and anything is more important to him...
I guess he is eating cookies now for instance.