Anyone use blender for Uv mapping? I have UVMpro and it's great but I was looking for something to split seams/ flatten etc - I also have Carrara 7 pro which does just that but quite frankly carrara's gui makes me twitch when it comes to mapping - I just tried to look at a video demo of Blender's uv mapping features but it didn't load...

Blender's UVMapper is one of the best. I to have C7.2 and it's not even close. UVMapping is fairly simple. Go to edit mode. Switch one of the panes to UVMap, go back to your model, enter edit mode. Select the edges, a few at the time, don't try to select too much. Press Ctrl-E and select "Mark Seam". Voila! You have a seam.
When your done with the seams press U and from the menu select "Unwrap". You have your UVMap.
There more to it but from there you can probably figure it out from the manual
For more details see the "Introducing Character Animation with Blender" book

Thanks for the infoPret! I haven't downloaded or ever used Blender yet but with the amount of tuts online for it I might just be unwrapping some UVs rather quickly.  ;)

I too Have Carrara7pro and I am still learning blender so any UV mapping I have to create I use Carrara7pro at the mo. However.. If one wants to become fully consistent within a program then you can't get any better than blender because there are so many tutorials and blender maniacs that are willing to offer a helping hand. Just don't expect to learn about blender over night otherwise you will become dissapointed and give up. Take it one step at a time and you will get there eventually.

Ah, good to know, benney - that's what I was really wondering about blender - "is this the type of program that I can rely on to be a long term uv unwrapper, etc?" So thanks for clearing that up for me - I was a bit wary of jumping in to learning yet another program but if it's worth it - then a-jumpin'
I will go! :)

 I use Blender to map all my models and although I am better at it now, it did, like everything in Blender take a while to get used to it.
 A tip with seams is to check that they are continuous by selecting a face and then using CTRL+L to check them (Only faces up to the seam will be highlighted). Any break in the seam with cause the whole mesh to become selected instead of the island.
Alternatively, set up vertice groups while modeling for easy selection.

Thanks for the tips, Touchwood! I do need to get better with organizing groups and such before mapping so I don't end up doing the same thing four times lol

Yeh Blender has a great uvmapper. I think graybeard has a good video on this. http://www.blender.org/education-help/video-tutorials/modelmateriallight/

Awesome! Thanks, ren!

Quote - Yeh Blender has a great uvmapper.

i see this said a lot, but i have no idea what it means because i've only used Blender for UV mapping.  that is, i have nothing to compare it to.  and maybe i don't know certain features exist at all.  could you say what about the UV mapping tool makes it better than other, average mappers?

is there a site with trick and tips for UV mapping?

Quote - > Quote - Yeh Blender has a great uvmapper.

i see this said a lot, but i have no idea what it means because i've only used Blender for UV mapping.  that is, i have nothing to compare it to.  and maybe i don't know certain features exist at all.  could you say what about the UV mapping tool makes it better than other, average mappers?

Lol I'm not exactly qualified to answer you b/c I haven't used blender, but the standard standalone UVmapper round these parts seems to be UVmapperPro which is really great but doesn't do seam making and the kind of flattening that other programs do. Does blender flatten out maps very well or do you still need to pin and scoot?

Quote - is there a site with trick and tips for UV mapping?

There's the Uvmapping forum here which is very good for help and tips regarding uvmapping, http://www.uvmapper.com/ has some tuts for uvmapper pro some of which translates to other programs.  What software are you using for your mapping?

Quote - Yeh Blender has a great uvmapper.

i see this said a lot, but i have no idea what it means because i've only used Blender for UV mapping.  that is, i have nothing to compare it to.  and maybe i don't know certain features exist at all.  could you say what about the UV mapping tool makes it better than other, average mappers?

I've used other uv mapping programs before and I can tell you from experience. There is really no comparison. I tried UVMapper, but all it seems to do is project an image of the model? It even leaves polys behind polys I dont understand who would use such a useless tool.The other two were below even UVMapper standards. (any UVMapper lovers out there feel free to correct me! Im always looking for an easier route)

Whoever designed the unwrapper in Blender hated unwrapping meshes because dude its almost a 1 click process anymore. You can literally stretch out the mesh, pin down the corners, release edge tension, and set up a beautiful map that any texture artist would enjoy painting. Very many of your good texture artists come from a traditional medium background and have no idea what we have to go through to get the uvmap to look like something paintable, you know?

Anyways, anyone out there need some pretty uvmaps to go with their model? Give me a buzz!!! (shameless plug)

Merry Christmas !

EDIT:: after seeing the latest screenshots from the UVMapper website, I see that it does open up the meshes now, apparently using some kind of seam type thing. When I tried it a year or so ago it did not.  From my limited experience, I think most artists prefer the method on the right (the monkey from the above link).The method on the left is better for your materials tho because it appears to be seamless. I will look into this soon and post back my opinions :)

EDIT AGAIN: I was looking at the gallery on the UVMapper website but all I see are renders. It seems a gallery for a model unwrapper should contain images of the uv maps created with it. Now I am confused. I tried to go to the forum but the link is dead. What does UVMapper do again ?