I'm beginning the uvw unwrapping stage for the first time in 3dsmax. I want to unwrap multiple objects together onto just a few maps as Gabe has done and is usually done for games. All the tutorials just cover one object to one map. I'm wondering what workflow people use to accomplish this? So far I have tried selecting all the objects then applying the unwrap UVW modifier. It works sort of, but as soon as I drop out of the stack and come back, weird stuff happens. For example, If I want to select a face hidden under another object or element, there seems to be no way to hide the offending object or element without messing everything up. I don't want to start spending hours flattening and stitching stuff with this method if its just gonna infuriate me halfway through. What seems like it would make more sense is if I could just tackle one object at a time each with its own unwrap uvw modifer, and then combine them onto one sheet later. But I'm not sure how to do that?
Well my workflow for UVing is unwraping one mesh at the time(no modifier). It sure takes some time and is really tedious but this way you'll get the best possible result. Take notince that if you want to add normal maps, hard edges have to be cut from eachother..here is a pretty good tutorial on normal maps for later. It's for maya but this guy explains the best in my opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGszEIT4Kww After you're done with unvrapping the parts you want to have on one map( i.e. all undercarriage stuff and the engine) you have to scale the UVs correctly(big more detail/small less detail) and place them on the same map...I hope this helps a little...I have no idea how UV maps are done in max...so I can't really help you with that process.
I think I got it! I use an unwrap uvw modifier on each object, then scale it down and move it outside the texture square to its own location so as not to overlap others later on (blindly, as I can only see one object at a time). Then once I have all the objects unwrapped, I can select them all and add the unwrap uvw modifier to the whole group, and, as if by magic, all of the objects show up in the new map with all their previous unwrap work already done. At that point its just a matter of getting them packed into the square and render to texture. The only issue I have is that I can't seem to have any other modifiers like symmetry in the stack before the uvw, and if I go into the edit poly modifier at all even without making a change, the unwrap uvw modifier stops working. So there seems to be no chance to make any change to the mesh or even to select faces for materials once I've started unwrapping, which really sucks.
For symetry what I do is delete one half of the object, do an unwrap and after that I duplicate it mirrored. The mirrored half should have the same UV's as the "original" half...after that simply combine the meshes and collapse the verts again.
