Mirror UVW’s… The Easy Way: Tutorial (in 3ds max)By: Brad Myers

To mirror UVW’s the fastest and easiest way it will take some careful planning, but if done properly it can save you from having to flip or weld any UVW verts at all which ultimately is a huge time saver. Here it goes…

First off make sure you have a perfectly symmetrical mesh. If you are unsure if your mesh is symmetrical be certain by deleting the half in question and using the symmetry modifier to re-create that half.

Symmetry modifier settings:

1. Go to the “Modifier List” drop down box in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Select “Symmetry” as shown.

2. Click on the plus next to “Symmetry” to show “Mirror” below.

3. Highlight “Mirror” by clicking on it.

4. Make sure under “Mirror Axis” the radio button “X” is selected. Note: This will only work properly if you have the model facing the front viewport and centered properly on the 0,0,0 axis (center of all axis). If you are unsure how to do this there is a simple solution (“Mini Tutorial”) shown at the end of this tutorial.

5. Make sure that “Slice Along Mirror” is not checked.

6. Make sure that “Weld Seam” is check. Note: This will automatically weld the portion of the mesh you just mirrored with the parts touching it along the seam.

-Once you have a model with proper symmetry and ready for Unwrapping you may now begin to prep for the real unwrapping.

In this tutorial we will get this simple Barbell and weights properly UVW mapped and mirrored to be very efficient with UVW space.

First examine the shape and decide what you can mirror. In this case the larger weights (45lbs each) can all be mirrored to use the same space. The smaller weights (25lbs each) can use the same UVW space as well. Furthermore we can split the bar itself so that it won’t be as long and mirror that too. This will save even more UVW space, so lets begin.

Start by cutting the model in half. This will add a few more polygons but will be well worth the UVW space it saves in almost all cases. To split the mesh perfectly use the

edge selection tool,

And select all the edges in the center (barbell) and press the connect button. This puts an edge loop right down the center of your mesh. *** Be sure to save your project now.

Now that the mesh is split properly, select half the mesh with the face selection tool and press the “delete” key on your keyboard. Don’t worry if you make any mistakes you can easily use the symmetry modifier to get the mesh back to the way it was, or you can always revert back to your saved file.

From here you can select one of the extra large weight (the 45lbs) and delete that too as it will also be mirrored. Note: The easiest way to select the just one weight is to go into

face selection mode and select one face on the big

weight. Just under the selection tools, there is a “Grow” button, .Press it several times until the whole weight is selected and now you can delete it. Even though the weight is intersecting with the rest of the mesh and attached, it still won’t

select any other parts when “Grow” is pressed because the big weight is not welded to any other part of the mesh.

This is where you should be at now…

As you can see there is no longer any geometry that is mirror-able, and that means you can begin to unwrap the mesh. You can use your regular Unwrap workflow here within 3ds max, but personally I use Unfold 3d magic for quick efficient unwrapping. With unfold 3d it is similar to Pelt mapping where all you need to do is draw the seams and the program unwraps for you. Here are the results of my Unfold 3d Magic unwrap…

-At this point the setup still is not ideal, so its time for me to export the now unwrapped mesh into 3ds max as an .obj from Unfold 3d Magic. If you didn’t use an alternate unwrapping program then you will not have to worry about importing or exporting in 3ds max. Once I have the unwrapped version in 3ds max, I will now convert the mesh back to an editable poly. Then place an “Unwrap UVW” modifier on the mesh and go into “Edit” mode.

Probably the best way to order your UVW pieces here is to first uniform scale all your UVW’s as much as you can to the point that you think they will all still fit on the UVW square. Once you have done this, put the most important and biggest chunks in first, and scale appropriately. Here is the order I ended up with for my Barbell model.

Depending on your particular mesh, you may or may not want to scale them individually, or in other words, break the uniform scale. For this, I tried to keep them as uniform as possible (meaning all the black squares will be the same size throughout the mesh if you flood the mesh with a check material).

At this point you are done unwrapping! If you mirror your mesh you will notice that the UVW’s stay the same, thus meaning that your UVW’s will mirror as you mirror your mesh.

-So to finish up simply select your model making sure you are not in a selection mode.

And click the “Mirror” button at the top.

A mirror dialogue will appear…

1. Select the radio button “X” so that it mirrors on the X axis.2. Select the radio button “Copy” so that it makes a clone or copy across the x axis.3. Click “OK”.

At this point you should have something that looks like this…

Select the center verts and weld them in Vertex selection mode by pressing “Weld”.

Now all that’s left to do is select your big Weight (45lbs) and copy it, and place it in the position you want. The easiest way to do this is go into face selection mode. Select all

the faces of the big weight, and press the “Detach” Button, . Once the

weight is detached select the move tool, press and hold the “Shift” button on your keyboard and drag another weight out. Do this to both sides and you will have completed the original mesh, with all the UVW’s finished and mirrored. Now all that is left to do is re-attach the objects in your mesh and you are finished.

-Click the “Attach” button, and attach the last few objects to the main mesh. The following image below demonstrates the finished Unwrapped and mirrored model.

>>>>>>End of Tutorial

*** Scroll Down for Mini Tutorial ***

How to get an object re-centered on the 0,0,0 axis… (Mini Tutorial: “4. continued”)

-First make sure you currently do not have your mesh in any selection mode.

-Click on the Hierarchy tab on the top right portion of your screen.

1. Make sure that “Pivot” is highlighted.

2. Click “Affect Pivot Only”

-At the top of the screen click so you are

in “Select and Move” mode, .

-At the bottom of your screen enter in 0 for all three Coordinate boxes and click somewhere on the viewport when finished to deselect. (1,2,3)

3. Now go back to the Hierarchy dialogue and click “Affect Object Only”.

4. This changes the options in the “Alignment” section. Click “Center to Pivot”. Now your model should have moved so it is perfectly centered on the 0,0,0 axis.

*******************************

If you have rotation issues; for example your model is not facing the front perspective. You can nearly perfect this by going into the “Select and Rotate” panel.

To fix the rotation, simply “Right” click on the “Select and Rotate” button,

.

This brings up the dialogue…Here you can extremely accurately rotate your object until you get him facing front-wise just right.

>>> End of Mini Tutorial.

*************************************************************************** I hope you have found this Tutorial helpful, and if you have any questions please feel free to email me. >>> Bgauge@hotmail.com ***