Quote - i've never had a problem with Blender interpreting existing UV maps.  you can select loops by holding down alt when you click (in case you didn't already know), and you can select edges in your UV map window.  i'm not yet sure how, if it's possible at all, to go from those edges to marking seams.  i'm not sure you can port seams without UV maps from one app to another. and if you can, i'm not sure you can with Blender.

Yes, I can trace the existing seams within the UV editor by doing Alt-RMB repeatedly, then go back into the 3d view and Ctrl-E/'Mark Seams'. It's just very tedious, especially when you consider all those little extra bits like teeth, tongue, eyes, etc., and it would be nice to be able to tell Blender to just use the ones that already exist, but do a fresh unwrap. As a first approximation, if two faces share an edge in 3d space but not in UV space, that's a seam. It should be very easy to detect that in the .obj file, but I don't know how to pass the information to Blender, or else I could just modify the existing Wavefront import script.

I'm back to UVLayout for the moment. It's too bad that the demo version doesn't have the symmetry feature, which would be extremely useful. But although Blender's UV editing is quite impressive, expecially for open source software, the quality of the unwrapping isn't quite the same, and it doesn't have a symmetry feature either. With UVLayout I can get close if I'm careful, and maybe I'll just write some little application myself that'll do the symmetrizing.

Also, I'm back to trying wacko stuff with the positioning of the seams. I just can't help it, sorry. :biggrin: Image to follow when I've done the hands, as I'm currently remapping everything from scratch. But I promise to keep the face in one piece this time. Shrinking the nose in 3d space before mapping might actually help to distribute the distortion a bit more evenly. Maybe I can do something tricky with the lips, too, like mapping them with the mouth slightly open or something like that. Also, I had some trouble in the past with the nostrils and ear 'channels' - or whatever you native speakers may call them - which went in quite deep. Now I've flattened them, and hopefully that will make the UV optimizing go more smoothly.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.