Need to bend and warp uvw islands

[RobH2]

I need the ability to bend and warp uvw islands. I have some complex unwraps and I need to bend the islands. Imagine a map with an arch but the island arches the opposite direction. I know I can painstakenly move the verts of the island and sooner or later arrive at a warp that might work. Surely there is some way to select an entire island and warp or bend it, much like a bend modifier in Max.

However, all I can do is scale, rotate and translate. I began moving verts of the island by hand using selection sets, soft select, etc. and after 2.5 hours I was only 1/3 of the way through.

I looked a a few stand-alone programs and none of them warp or bend.

Any ideas?

[Midge_S · Accepted solution]

You could try using peel mode in the Unwrap UV Editor.

It'll take some practice but it might just do the trick.

Check out this video around 03:00 for more info.

[RobH2 · Accepted solution]

I did try Peel Mode but maybe I need to revisit it. The video you provided is helpful. I’ll dive back in and see what I can do. Thanks for jumping in on this post. I really appreciate the attention and hope your suggestion solves my issue.

[RobH2 · Accepted solution]

Just a quick report back that this did in fact completely satisfy my needs. The video was what I needed. It's too bad that searches here don't some how "smartly" snag those kinds of resources as that is "an" Autodesk video I believe. However, for anyone else having trouble getting a UV island to warp to match a map, this will do it. Thanks again.

[Midge_S]

Glad I could help! 🙂

[StephenMF]

The smart thing about these forums are the "smartly" people...

🙂

[RobH2]

Yes, I agree. I've been using this Forum since it started over 15-years ago. The "Registered" date for all of us older users is incorrect. That's from the 1st big Forum overhaul and now we've recently had another one.

I've always told people that the Max Forum here was the best one I've ever used. And, I participate in about 20 forums for all kinds of software. The AREA is the most professional and the expertise is by far the best I've seen. I've solved 100's of issues here with the help of the "gurus" here. I can't say enough about the quality of this forum. It's somehow steered away from the sophomoric sarcasm, swearing and silly banter that a lot of other forums suffer from.