3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [354]
Using these controls, you can enable Soft Selection with a specified Falloff value. The UV and XY options let you switch between texture coordinates and object coordinates for the falloff. The Edge Distance lets you specify the Soft Selection falloff in terms of the number of edges from the selection instead of a falloff value. You also can choose the falloff profile as Smooth, Linear, Slow Out, or Fast Out.
Navigating the main view
Along the bottom edge of the Edit UVWs dialog box are several more buttons for viewing the coordinate values, changing the display options and navigating the main view. Table 33.4 shows and describes these buttons.
The buttons in the lower-right corner of the Edit UVWs dialog box work just like the Viewport Navigation buttons described in earlier chapters, including buttons to snap to grid and snap to pixel. You also can navigate about the Edit UVW window using the scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the window and dragging the scroll wheel to pan the view.
Using the Quick Transform buttons
One of the first tasks when unwrapping an object is to select and separate off different areas of polygons that have unique UVs. Each unique set of faces in the Edit UVW dialog box is called a cluster. For example, if you have a car with a matching texture, then the same texture can be mapped for each of the wheel hubs by placing each of the clusters for the wheel hub on top of each other over the bitmap section that shows the hub details. The same can be done for the side panels on the car, but one of the sides must be flipped horizontally. This is where the Quick Transform functions come in. They allow you to select and manipulate the different clusters.
The Quick Transform rollout, shown in Figure 33.5, in the Edit UVWs dialog box includes buttons for aligning, rotating, and spacing subobjects.
The Set Pivot button includes options as flyouts to set the pivot at the center or at any of the four corners of the selection. You also can move the pivot to a precise location by dragging it when the Freeform Mode button on the top toolbar is selected. The pivot is marked by an orange set of crosshairs, and it is the point about which the selection is rotated and scaled.
The Align feature includes buttons to align the selected vertices or edges to the current pivot or to an average of the selected subobjects. The Align to Pivot option is the default, and the average align is available as a flyout. If you press and hold the Shift key, the entire edge loop is aligned. When used on an edge ring, all the individual edges are oriented to be perfectly parallel. The Linear Align button aligns the vertices or edges to a straight line that stretches between the two endpoints. The Align to Edge button is available only in Edge subobject mode. It rotates the entire cluster until the selected edge is either vertically or horizontally aligned.
FIGURE 33.5
The Quick Transform rollout includes buttons for aligning, rotating, and spacing subobjects.
Caution
The align features are to be used only on vertices and edges, but you can select and use them on faces. However, this only collapses the faces to a single line because it acts to align all vertices in the selection. •
The Rotate +90 and Rotate –90 buttons rotate the selected subobjects 90 degrees in the Edit UVW interface. The rotation is about the set pivot. The Space Horizontal and Space Vertical buttons are used to equally space all the selected vertices or edges. The Shift key applies this to the entire edge loop.
New Feature
The Set Pivot, Align to Pivot, Linear Align, and Align to Edge buttons in the Quick Transform rollout of the Edit UVW dialog box are all new to 3ds Max 2012. •
Straightening and Relaxing UV clusters
Within the Reshape Elements rollout are three buttons for reshaping the selected cluster of UVs. The Straighten Selection button is available only in Face subobject