unwrapping in 3dsmax tips,tricks and help?

[Valeoncat]

ok soo im in need of some help when it comes to unwrapping. im going to be unwrapping this:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a313/Valeoncat/update3.jpg

anything useful/efficient i should know?

also i have a question. ive unwrapped before but theres somthing thats been puzzling me. on my model i have the body(black) and add ons(white) as seperated objects. they have seperate texture sheets but i want them on the same sheet. so:

is there a way to put them on the same sheet?

or do i have to make them all one object? which leads to my second question; if they are the same object,(some parts are ontop of others/overlapping) how would i get to the polys under the ones on top when im unwrapping??

lol i hope that wasnt to confusing...:think:

[DEEhunter]

Headus UVlayout. Best tool I've used.

[Valeoncat]

hmm does the demo have a time limit? or are there restricted features?

[CaptainHowdy]

ok soo im in need of some help when it comes to unwrapping. im going to be unwrapping this:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a313/Valeoncat/update3.jpg

anything useful/efficient i should know?

also i have a question. ive unwrapped before but theres somthing thats been puzzling me. on my model i have the body(black) and add ons(white) as seperated objects. they have seperate texture sheets but i want them on the same sheet. so:

is there a way to put them on the same sheet?

or do i have to make them all one object? which leads to my second question;if they are the same object,(some parts are ontop of others/overlapping) how would i get to the polys under the ones on top when im unwrapping??

lol i hope that wasnt to confusing...:think:

Right, I haven't got Max running on this rig so I hope this info is all ok!

What you want to do is attach all your objects together but keep your seperate textures in seperate materials.

Once all your bits are attached , into "edit UV" and make sure your mapping channel is set to "1".

Copy all your texture UV's and close your UV edit window.

In the texture edit options, change your mapping channel to "2" and click the edit button again, in the texure uv window, select all your texture verts and re-paste your channel 1 verts that you copied previously.

Map channel 1 and channel 2 should now have the same texture uv layout.

Make sure map channel 2 is active and sort out all your objects uv's so they sit how you want them in the texture space.

(with me so far?)

You should now have an object with 2 uv/map channels, the first one being the "messy one" with overlapping texture verts from all the attached objects and a 2nd "cleaned up" one with all the texture verts moved around so they all sit neatly in one texture space.

hit the 0 key to bring up your "render to texture" options.

under "mapping co-ordinates" make sure "use existing channel is active and change the number in the channel to "2"

Hit the "add" button in the Output section and choose "diffuse" map and choose what size you want your combine texture map to be.

Click the render button and if I havent messed up, you should get a texture created that uses all of your texture maps combined into one texture map, using your new UV layout. A single map for your new all-in-one model :)

Im working blind here so apologies if all this is not clear enough.