That it to say, the problems with Carrara's UV mapping utility, most of which go back to version 4 or earlier; Non-standard cylinder map (wraps the face of one row instead of splitting at an edge). UV map corrupted when welding vertices in model room. "Nil pointer error" when detaching polygons in UV mapper. Impossible to do a locked 180 rotate (one can only do this freehand). UVmapping lost with several ordinary modeling routines (oddly enough, you can split an edge with edge tools, or collapse sub-D's for a denser modeler and still maintain the UV map. Tesselate with the tesselate tool, though, and the map reverts to spherical default.) And the list of "features, not bugs"; UV mapper window doesn't remember settings or window size (and the default is too small to use). Non-standard selection and navigation tools in UV mapper window. (Slowly, this is coming around; control-Z is now "undo" instead of "select all," double-click on an edge propagates selection now...) No "relax" function. No numeric functions, or manipulators; the only way to move a point is by dragging it -- and that doesn't work properly if there are other points even NEAR it. No "snap to grid" either. Oh, and related: Polygon group names vanish during editing of mesh -- even using SELECTION tools can cause this. All of these have been logged, many made it to the "confirmed" stage. As of over two years, though, not a one has been as much as assigned. Am I just being stupid continuing to struggle with mapping my models in Carrara (and Steve Cox's UV Mapper for all those things Carrara does REALLY badly)? Should I break my piggy bank for the bucks for a real UV mapping program? It does make for such a nicer workflow if you can map in Carrara whilst working on the model in question. For instance; take a dress with a set of buttons. The dumb way to map this is to finish the dress, export to mapper, collect all the buttons, laboriously flatten them out... The smart way is to build one button and map it before you duplicate it to finish off the dress!

Probably most people have Steve's UV Mapper Pro anyway--as far as I can make out, very few 3D apps have a good /ideal UV mapper .

Today, every serious app have a decent UV map editing system. Carrara can be probably a professional software for many features, but sometimes, for marketing reasons or something DAZ and Eovia (in the past years) prefer to develop useless things. I think that all the really good things in carrara that make the difference from other softwares are still the ones created years ago from Metacreations.

-TOXE

Quote - ...as far as I can make out, very few 3D apps have a good /ideal UV mapper .

Have you used any other apps' UV mapping, to make a statement like that? :blink:
Even free modelers, like Wings3D and Blender, have very good mapping.

Yes. None seem to come up to Steve's UV Mapper Pro for me though.

Horses for courses?

UV Mapper Pro is almost enough to make me switch to Windows!

Jeeezzzeeee!--You mean you DONT have Windows?
No sympathy!

(I only have ever had--and without problems!)

Lightwave and modo have superb UV tools, better than UV Mapper pro in my opinion. I agree with dvlenk6, wings and blender too and for free!

-TOXE

Bit of a cost to get a UV mapper though!

I agree, you spend a lot of time ajusting the UV map - moving point by point sometimes - and most of results are frustrating. DAZ could improve the UV editor, so the Metaball Modeler Room, first changing that old fashion interface used since Carrara 1...

Metaball... Since version 1 every user of carrara want to see an improvement... You can use blender for that, it's really good

-TOXE

Yes, Metaball is a good tool. You can make nice cartoon looks-like clouds, as I used here:

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee104/noviski/Carrara/cena_urso07.jpg

With a glow channel and some blur the results are decent, IMHO. ;)

(Edited: And the tree foliage, the honey drips are Metaballs too.)

Nice work with metaballs!

-TOXE

Quote - Yes. None seem to come up to Steve's UV Mapper Pro for me though.

Horses for courses?

That's true, everybody has their own favorites; but there is a workflow issue involved too.
"[Shrug] Oh well, I have UV Mapper Pro." isn't going to resolve any uv mapping issues for Carrara. I think it should have good UV Mapping of it's own...

Quote - Bit of a cost to get a UV mapper though!

See you have it backwards. When you spend money to buy Lightwave, or Modo, or Max, or whatever to make models; you don't have to go and make an additional purchase of an external UV Mapping program. It is part of the package.

Quote - Bit of a cost to get a UV mapper though!

See you have it backwards. When you spend money to buy Lightwave, or Modo, or Max, or whatever to make models; you don't have to go and make an additional purchase of an external UV Mapping program. It is part of the package. 

That's right! If you need to be a "complete 3D software" for all "animation and modelling solution" on the copetitive market, you must do the adjusts. And it envolves lower prices and big improvements.

The word "complete" that Daz use on his site is not true. UV mapping is necessary today in a serious 3d app to say that is complete. In addition, i've bought LW8 and for now (we are at 9.3) every upgrade is free.

-TOXE

Carrara can UV map, it is just bad at it. Needs fixin', from a modeler's standpoint.
It's not all Daz's fault either. Not even really mostly Daz's fault. Only thing is they haven't fixed most of the known problems with it. They decided, for whatever reasons, that other features should take precedence. I'd imagine marketing reasons.
There should be a version release that adds no new features and simply fixes everything that is wrong (or as much as possible). There's quite a few bugs that have been hanging for a long time. Most of them can be worked around; but having a 'work around' does not equal 'fixed'.

I should note this post was engendered by a little bit of repair work on already-mapped models...which proceeded to give me the usual frustrating problems in retaining and repairing said maps.

It's a toss-up, now, whether it is less annoying to stop a model half-way in Carrara, export, use UV-mapper, re-import, then continue working....or go into Carrara's UV mapper, split verts, drag everything around to fix the stupid mapping errors, then continue working...