3ds Max: UVW Unwrap Your Poly Models - Step by Step

UVW unwrapping is one of the things I am asked about more than anything else. To many it seems very mysterious, especially if you are using the standard 3ds Max tools. In this video I attempt to break down and simplify it in a way that makes sense. I have been perfecting my workflow for a long time, and it works especially well for furniture for arch viz. That is when/where I use it ALL THE TIME! It is a great thing to understand, as it allows you to apply custom painted maps just how you want them onto your models. It can add so much realism!

One of the hardest things about UVW unwrapping is the strange UI, with a bunch of new buttons, commands and hotkeys that are foreign to most of us familiar with working in 3ds Max. I will show you the essential tools that you need to know as I demonstrate on a custom chair model.

The other hard part is just workflow -- like when to do what. I will show that process as well and hopefully share something that will help you in your workflow (which could definitely be a little bit different than mine)

Overall, I think this should be a helpful demonstration tutorial for anyone who is wanting to get more familiar with the UVW unwrapping process for their custom models.

This, of course, is part of a much larger course. The course this comes from is a collection of tutorials/projects going over all the various techniques and workflows for poly modeling in Max. Check the link above to create this chair right along with me, as well as other poly modeling projects in Autodesk 3ds Max.

[CptCrash_ZA]

Thanks for the tutorial man, learned something new with the UVW's

[arcitek]

Adam, I do have several of your courses and they are good. I happened upon this youtube video and good info again. I am going to ask though, if I were to take this into unreal, you would unwrap the uvs in two separate efforts, correct? You would unwrap for diffuse on channel 1 and then do so again on channel 2 for the lightmaps, correct? My other question is would you do the basic material setup in 3smax and export with datasmith and then refine in unreal or just give a standard material and then build a new material in unreal. The reason I ask is because I find that datasmith puts out some pretty involved materials in unreal with probably more nodes than necessary. I believe these add to the material draws in unreal which matters when trying to do real time stuff such as VR.

[vexydara]

No UVs are showing up in my window. What am I missing? I applied a basic material and set material IDs

[vexydara]

I figured it out. Can’t have editable poly on Faces, need to turn faces off

[arthurswith]

do we have to use this plugin all the time?I am using uww map and it works for me what is difference between them

[garryhargreaves]

Hi Adam, when is the mapping course released?

[pjmclenon]

cannot follow you--i was not able to do the selct id i nthe 1st section so then the second section is not watcable either thxx Lisa

[lyloudgz]

please can you help me the material ids do not work in the uvw :(

[mahirestate]

Please make arch viz tutorials for blender.

[vbrigham]

The biggest problem you have is quality of your video. It doesn't matter how good your presentation is, if I can't see the words in your video, I'm lost! That 2 me is 90% of learning. You might aw well make your video just audio.