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  • Published 18 Nov 2017

UV-mapping AFTER modifier

My Proposal : Allow users to unwrap the modified mesh

While Blender's modifiers are wonderful for non-destructive modeling, it turns out that they are somewhat troublesome when texturing it. For example, Mirror modifier. They are absolutely wonderful when you want the mesh to be symmetric but turns in to a trouble maker when you want the texture to be assymetric (even they are manageable with the U and V) Other examples contain

  • Boolean (textures for the cross section)
  • Screw (textures for the screwed plane)
  • Array (different textures for each object)

and so on (please feel free to write your own "I had trouble with this".)

It would be fantastic to unwrap the mesh as if the modifiers were applied while they are still in the form of modifiers.

Of course, I am not saying that this should be perfectly easy. One possible trouble is that the uv might turn useless when some of the modifiers were deleted (not applied).

Even still, I believe that this will be awesome.

95.2%

Development Status: Open

Upvote 20 Downvote 1
Allosteric
18 Nov 2017

8 Comments

3di

Brilliant Idea. Basically a UV modifier, or uv unwrap modifier that can be placed anywhere in the modifier stack. The same as 3ds max and houdini basically.

2
david88

i want this solved too. it's 2023 guys

MasterJames

This would be delightful if you could also do it from a simple Curve that is Extruded, Solidified, and even lattice deformed, etc. for now in this situation in 2.82 you can't project in UV Editing on the curves control points. "Apply must die!" ~ MJ

jason

I'm concerned about how this might work in the Blender interface. By your proposal, there's a very real chance that the visible geometry in the UV/Image Editor will not reflect anything you actually see when the mesh is in Edit mode in the 3D View. How would to reconcile this?

Allosteric Author

@Jason van Gumster: I don't know the best solution but I believe the following is acceptable.

  • The UV unwrap modifier has it's own editing mode which mimmics Edit mode (just like in TextureAtlas).
  • In normal edit mode, vertecies on UV/Image Editor are immobile(or invisible or whatever).
  • In UV unwrap Modifier's Edit mode, the post modifier vertecies can be selected indivisually. Users cannot move them in 3D view but can make seam and hide.
  • In UV unwrap Modifier's Edit mode, the post modifier vertecies can be moved on the UV/Image Editor.

I believe some of them can be technically difficult but I believe this UI is rather user friendly.

jason

@Allosteric: For visual feedback, how will users know that they're in "regular" edit mode versus the modifier's edit mode?

Also, this injects a bit of user interface inconsistency. If users can directly edit the derived mesh for your UV unwrap modifier, then why wouldn't they be able to edit the derived mesh for other modifiers? Suddenly, this becomes a much bigger proposal...

zuorion

How do you even imagine that? UV unwrap Modiffer, that just executes UV Unwrap after modifier stack?

Well, for now you can use UV project. Also:

  1. Boolean:

Created mesh have UV's from booling object: i.imgur.com/NihPm3z.png 3. Mirror Offset for UV is commited to master ( developer.blender.org/rB1c5f5fb95f13c81fcfad0a7cf89653f86f5bdf82 ) and i made patch recently for Array UV offset ( developer.blender.org/D2912 ). They should be in next release.

Allosteric Author

@Pawel Piotrowski:

Thanks for the informations. I never knew about the Array UV offset. It sounds wonderful.

It appears to me that your UV unwrap Modifier has no trouble. Do you have any concerns?