Check that UV shells are within tile

[patrick8CTF6]

Especially for Substance and UDIM workflows, it can be easy to miss a shell that has crossed over a tile. Substance lets me know, but I'd like to avoid sending in that condition.

I see options for Overlapping UV Count in the UV Stats HUD - which isn't what I'm looking for.

Seems a useful tool that I'd expect exists somewhere, any ideas?

[damaggio]

Use shell padding .

[patrick8CTF6]

Nice. Thanks

[patrick8CTF6]

@damaggio I'm not sure if that's it. Are you referring to the Shell Spacing option in the Layout settings?

I'm actually looking for a way to check that nothing is outside the tile, especially after making custom UV layouts. Using the Layout tool is not going to take the layout all the way.

Maybe there is another thing you refer to?

[damaggio]

The shells won't be outside the UV space...it's an algorithm and it works every time.

See this simple example...nothing is outside nor overlapping ready for UDIM work.

[patrick8CTF6]

I think you are missing my meaning - to pack the UV's in a meaningful way, it often most practical to pack them by hand. Especially for character work. But even simple objects often need a custom touch, the automated layout option is nice but doesn't commonly work in practice. It seems that there is no way, like 3dsMax, to check that shells are outside the border.

[damaggio]

That's absolutely correct Patrick, better to do hero assets by hand for a variety of reasons.

I don't know about 3DS ...but why would the shells be outside the border after you manually place them?

Do you have an example to share? or a link.

[patrick8CTF6]

??

Because dozens (or hundreds) of shells are meant to be optimized, close to the border but not over the border - pixel scale doesn't necessarily represent floating point UV space. It's not uncommon for well placed shells to be slightly over the border and a simple function could alert users to the invalid placement. As it stands, a user may either be particularly meticulous, or find the error later down the road, when it becomes a problem.

In Max, you can run a UV render that highlights shells red if they are outside the border. 

Thanks for the dialogue, it seems that Maya doesn't have the check, I'll rely on Substance to throw the error.

[damaggio]

Okay Patrick, maybe is a function that Maya doesn't have or I'm just not aware of.

One would need to dive into the documentation to check all possible settings or

look for a script online.

You can also reach out to one of the Autodesk forum employees to see if they know of

a similar feature in Maya.

Good luck and share what you find.👍