Introduction
The Polyraven UV tools is a MEL script for MAYA, which makes it easier to unwrap hardsurface geometries, and much faster to deal with the distribution and layout of the UV shells. It includes checker materials, and error checking functions, which can relatively quickly find: flipped, overlapping, incorrectly positioned and missing UVs. And many more things. It has been in development since the beginning of 2017, and every tool in it was created and iterated as the need arose for it. For compatibility check the supported versions section.
Distribution And Layout
-Organized Automatic Distribution and Layout, based on: selection, uvShells, or hierarchy with many options including Randomization.
Transform UV
- Transform UVs of heavy geometries without selecting the UVs
- Fit UVs to one UDIMM or UV Tile.
- Texel density, by uvShell or entire selection. (in MAYA 2018+)
Transfer UV
- Transfer UVs to multiple geometries at once.
- Project UVs and Transfer shape based on UVs
Orient UV
- Orient UVShells to multiple geometries at once, with options to point to the same direction in 3D/World space, or be Vertical or Horizontal in 2D/UV space.
UV Editing Tools
- Rectangulate / Gridify UVShells
- Automatically unwrap box-like geometries with having only one uvShell as a result.
- Stitch Edges; move sew and weld with scaling.
- Straighten multiple edges in UV space, with original orientation or Parallel to an Axis.
- Close hole; extrude/Weld with proper UVs in the end.
- Fix Border UVs of distorted uvShells after smoothing.
- Custom edge loop selector, which can select until the border of a uvShell, as well as through triangulated geometries.
- Select bevel loops.
Error Check
- Check for Flipped, incorrectly positioned, overlapping (MAYA 2018+), or missing UVs.
Checker and Flow Material
- An adjustable Checker Material
- uvFlow material which shows the orientation of the UVs.
- Chrome shader to check for modeling errors, that works without any lights in the scene.
MAYA: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023:
These version are fully supported.
MAYA LT:
Most of the script is working as expected, but the shaders.
The script does generate the shaders, but cant assign them.
To assign the shaders use the right click/context menu.
Limited functionality in MAYA/MAYA LT 2017 and earilier:
Autodesk implemented some great functions into Maya 2018 which made it possible for me to add tools much quicker, and optimize the overall performance. Due to popular demand, the script supports MAYA 2017 again. But some of the functions proove to be a bit more difficult to get working properly in this version, therefore the next features are not present for Maya 2017 and earilier:
- Texel Density and Check for overlapping doesn't work.
- The Distribution, Layout and Orientation functions are much slower.
Early preview builds:
Early preview builds are not supported.
How to get it?
Click the download button on this page, it will redirect you to Gumroad.
To install it, you need to drag and drop the PolyravenUV_v1.0_Installer into MAYA, which will add it to your currently opened shell. Alternatively you can import PolyravenUV_v1.0.mel directly, the way you see fit. A tutorial is available on this YouTube channel, or on this page, that goes into deeper details regarding its usage.
Authors
Polyraven UV tools is created by Szilárd Szlákó, with important contributions by Giuseppe Seda.
