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If your mapping coordinates are too tight, and you're having a tough time moving them, you can use the Relax feature to space the vertices equally. The second button is Relax Until Flat. It causes all vertices within the cluster to move in order to remove any tension from the cluster. It also tries to make all faces in the cluster roughly the same size. Relaxing a cluster removes stretching that occurs across the surface of the area.

New Feature

The Straighten Selection and Relax Until Flat buttons in the Reshape rollout of the Edit UVW dialog box are new to 3ds Max 2012. •

If the Relax Until Flat option pushes the cluster too far, the third button allows you to apply a custom set of relax settings. You can access the Relax Tool dialog box using the flyout button under the Relax:Custom button or using the Tools⇒Relax menu command. This tool works like the Relax modifier, pushing close vertices away and pulling far vertices closer together. Selecting this menu option opens the Relax Tool dialog box, shown in Figure 33.6, which offers three relax methods: Relax by Face Angles, Relax by Edge Angles, and Relax by Centers. The Iterations value is the number of times to apply the relax algorithm. The Amount value is how aggressive the movements of the vertices are, and the Stretch value controls how much vertices are allowed to move. You also have options to Keep Boundary Points Fixed and Save Outer Corners.

FIGURE 33.6

The Relax Tool dialog box includes custom settings for the Relax feature.

Stitching and welding

If you select some faces within the Edit UVWs dialog box and drag them away from the other faces, you notice that some edges connecting the selected faces with the non-selected faces remain. You can use the buttons in the Stitch and Explode rollouts, shown in Figure 33.7, to break these remaining edges and to stitch broken clusters back together again.

The Stitch button is used in Vertex mode to match the selected vertices along a border to their corresponding vertices. Clicking one of the Stitch buttons moves both faces to a new location, depending on the button you use. The Stitch to Target moves the selected subobjects to the location of their matching subobject. The Stitch to Average moves both to a location midway between each, and the Stitch to Source moves the matching subobjects to the location of the selected subobjects.

If you enable the Display⇒Show Shared Sub-Objects menu command, the shared edges of the selected vertices are shown as blue lines. This indicates where the subobject face would be moved to when stitched.

The Stitch Custom button moves the subobjects based on the Stitch Settings dialog box's configuration. You can access the Stitch Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 33.8, using the flyout button under the Stitch Custom button or using the Tools⇒Stitch Selected menu command. The Stitch Tool dialog box includes options to align and scale the moved cluster, and the Bias value determines how close the selection moves to or away from the target subobject. A value of 0 moves the target to the source, and a value of 1 moves the source to the target.

The Break button in the Explode rollout breaks the selected subobjects from their surrounding faces so they can be moved without stretching out the edges of the adjacent faces. This works best if the Break tool is used before moving the selected faces. When the Break tool is used on vertices or edges, two vertices or edges are created. This allows the independent vertices or edges to be moved away from each other. When Break is used on faces, a new cluster is created.

FIGURE 33.7

The Stitch and Explode rollouts include buttons for breaking, welding and stitching vertices.

FIGURE 33.8

The Stitch Tool dialog box includes a Bias value to determine how far the selected subobjects move.

The opposite of Break is Weld, and the Explode rollout includes several ways to weld subobjects together. The Target Weld button