UV Editor sync and update
Hi there, am in the process of switching over from Maya and had a couple of things to request. I have been using Blender for some time and really enjoy the workflow, but one aspect where I feel it is lacking is the UV editor which could do with a revamp or at least an update! Coming from Maya's UV editor which in my opinion is very strong.
Another request would be to be able to enable UV sync but select one island at a time separate to the neighbouring vertices or edges, (this can be done in face mode, but selecting an island in vertex/edge mode will select its neighbouring UVs on separate islands.) Its possible to do this with UV sync off, but its a nice option to be able to view the UVs of a mesh in object mode without having to select all the faces first.
As an added note, It would be great to see preselection highlight added when hovering over components during modeling.
3 Comments
"its a nice option to be able to view the UVs of a mesh in object mode without having to select all the faces first. " Totally with you on this!
Posting multiple proposals in one post makes it hard to discuss and follow up. It should be one proposal, one post.
To clarify, are these what you propose?
1. a UV editor revamp
For what exactly? What you detail afterwards doesn't seem to require any revamp.
2. While UV Sync Selection is ON, be able to select a UV island in vertex/edge selection without its neighbors
On the technical side, this happens precisely because with UV Sync Selection ON, whatever you select in the UV editor gets selected in the viewport. So these "UV neighbors" are technically the same vertices.
Maybe this could be reported on the bug tracker via the menu Help > Report a bug and describe it as an unwanted behavior.
3. Be able to view the UVs of a mesh in object mode without having to select all the faces first
Interesting fact, this was kind of possible before Blender 2.8 via the Draw Other Object option:
I guess it was removed because now we can edit multiple objects at the same time. But it could be nice to have an option to always display UVs outside of edit mode. It does remove extra steps when you want to just see your UVs.
4. Pre Selection Highlighting
Probably will never happen, see it on Reference/AntiFeatures - Blender Developer Wiki .
UV editor in Blender is the main weakness of the software. It can only make "some UVs", but when you are restricted to the limits or if you need to fix up a textured model it can take hours to fix the issue which could take seconds in Maya. There were many suggestions already but unfortunately, UVs are ignored by the community and devs, leaving all gamedev artists to look for additional tools. The workflow of unwrapping has no sense from the start: there is no reason at all to sync\unsync 3D view from UV Editor. It has to be synchronized always and you have to be able to switch between all the UV Select Mode without hiding all other islands. (if artists need to hide something they always can hide with Ctrl+H). There are no profits from the existing workflow. The ability to unwrap selected polygons within neighboring areas without cutting them to a new island is crucial. It is a very common thing in game development: you fix a border of UV to fit on a very tight map, and you get some areas stretched. Then you select all the polygons inside the border (pin the border) and unwrap the island to stretch properly inside its own border. (In Maya it takes only one click, so it explains all the complaints of Maya users).
I'd say those two are the most major and crucial updates that Blender lacks drastically.