[SOLVED] Unwrapping multiple objects on a single texture.

[CaptainKipard]

The only way I can do it right now is by joining the objects into one, unwrapping and separating again. but that's too much work on complex mods.

Does anyone know how I can do it without joining the objects?

Edited August 6, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[landeTLS]

I use one of two ways. Both require a plugin for blender. And both technically involes temporarily merging objects into one. But allows you to keep modifiers etc.

First one is the relatively new multiedit plugin.http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?339369-MultiEdit-%28alpha-1%29-Multiple-Objects-Editing! It merges objects temporarily then seperates and restores any modifiers. Also usually works well on the curve modifier etc. The other is the texture atlas plugin(bundled with blender). But iwe found it less able of restoring especcially object offset arrays and curve modifiers after releasing the objects.

Edited August 3, 2014 by landeTLS

[Justin Kerbice]

What I do in such case is choosing wisely the 1st object to unwrap, create the map then working on the second object using the map previously created in the background (3dsmax allow to use any pic as background reference) and so on until all objects are unwrapped, then merge the wireframe maps together into one.

This way, I can unwrap without pb object with (partially) hidden polygons behind other objects. The main drawback of this way is to choose what is matter and what's not, and sometimes get back to change size of parts because they are not as important as I thought or I need more room for some polygons in order to get a better resolution here or there.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

I always build the item, be it a ship or a solar panel in one part, uv map the whole object, then cut it up tweaking the map for bulkheads etc as i go, otherwise I have a horrible time trying to match edges patterns and colors, and if the model has several cloned/duplicate parts I always make sure to fully map a complete object before cloning, although this does lead to shared uv's it's not something I have an issue with.

[nli2work]

it's why complex mods take along time. UV and Texturing take up 2/3rds of an asset's production time. Plan ahead and Unwrap as you model, and leave duplicating elements until you've unwrapped all the unique UV patches.

[CaptainKipard]

FAO Everyone

I've tried the plugin suggested by LandeTLS and it works brilliantly. I would recommend everyone else install it.

[stephm]

@+

I haven't see this post was solved during my writing , please moderator erase this post if needed

Edited August 6, 2014 by stephm

[sirkut]

FAO Everyone

I've tried the plugin suggested by LandeTLS and it works brilliantly. I would recommend everyone else install it.

Which one? He suggested two in his post.

[nli2work]

the first one I guess.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?339369-MultiEdit-%28alpha-1%29-Multiple-Objects-Editing!!

[CaptainKipard]

the first one I guess.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?339369-MultiEdit-%28alpha-1%29-Multiple-Objects-Editing!!

Yes. The one that needs to be..

...install...

...ed

[nli2work]

What I do in such case is choosing wisely the 1st object to unwrap, create the map then working on the second object using the map previously created in the background (3dsmax allow to use any pic as background reference) and so on until all objects are unwrapped, then merge the wireframe maps together into one.

This way, I can unwrap without pb object with (partially) hidden polygons behind other objects. The main drawback of this way is to choose what is matter and what's not, and sometimes get back to change size of parts because they are not as important as I thought or I need more room for some polygons in order to get a better resolution here or there.

You can also select all the object you want on a single UV set; apply UV Unwrap. You can then unwrap each part individually in the same Unwrap modifier, then select them all again and pack the UV patches. after you collapse the modifier, all the parts will retain their pivots and animations.

[cxg2827]

This is such a useful plugin!

[allista]

In my experience MultiEdit don't work with complex trees of animated objects.

But I found another blender plugin that worked in this case perfectly, so I add it to the list:

Multi-Object-UV-Editing

[cxg2827]

6 hours ago, allista said:

In my experience MultiEdit don't work with complex trees of animated objects.

But I found another blender plugin that worked in this case perfectly, so I add it to the list:

Multi-Object-UV-Editing

Thanks for sharing.

Same here. Using multi-edit after parenting parts together for an animation really messes things up, so it has forced me to do all UV unwrapping before duplicating objects and making the animation.