Good UV Mapping Software
Daz 3D Forums > General > The Commons>Good UV Mapping Software
Good UV Mapping Software
OrionPax09
Posts: 419
Just what it says on the tin. I'm looking for a good program for applying UV Maps to a 3D Model. And I don't mean some kind of random, automatic map, but something more...precise. Also, the less expensive, the better. Any suggestions?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I've actually been using Blender, mostly for simple morphs but also because I needed something to do UVs with.
My UV habits so far might be quite different to yours though, as I mostly make new UVs for geografts so that they match up to the base figure UV map better. Blender lets you put the UV map of another object in the background to make this quite easy.
What it's like making a UV map from scratch I don't know. But you can't beat free.
Wings 3D and Blender both do a very good job. Both free. Neither is automatic tho. You actually have to do some planning and cutting seams.
Laurie
There is no easy way to UV map. Each program basically does the same thing but differently depending on its UI design.
There are free programs as already mentioned plus there are several stand alone programs that do just UV Mapping.
Personally I do all my mapping in Silo where I also build my models.
Yeah, right now the free tools of Blender are hard to beat.
A number of vendors swear by UV Layout. But it's one of the ones that's on a subscription model, and comes in different levels. Also, like a lot of things, it is mainly built for Windows. People have used it on a Mac, but I gather you have to jump through hoops.
It's also a dedicated UV mapping program. NOT a modeler.
I use Ultimate Unwrap 3D Pro. It's not free, but it gets the job done.
So @cheetiot, I'm interested. If there a tutorial that shows how to do this?
Me too. Love that program.
Same here. I use it for all kinds of purposes from quick UVmappig, mesh format changes, decimating meshes and adding material zones. It's a great program.
I love UV Layout with all my being.
Are you shore they still exist ?
http://www.unwrap3d.com/
Ultimate Unwrap 3D (pro $60) is pretty good, but don't expect a lot of tutorials or explanation of what does what or how features operate... It's great if you know other UV wrapping programs, but then you probably have those so...
Blender is free and there are tons of tutorials available to figure out how to UV map with it... Of course half of those tutorials will be be out of focus and too fast...
3D Coat (around $200 U.S.) can auto map your model, but the map is usually an unrecognizable mess of mesh bits... You can paint it beautifully in 3D coat, and probably any other 3D painting program (Blacksmith3D, Substance Painter, etc.) ... But in an image editing program it makes no sense since it's just randomly placed mesh chunks, not a flattened skin like most people understand. Although if you want to you can manually map anything in it, and map a normal looking map... But that defeats the wonder of the auto mapping feature.
There is Roadkill, that's free and pretty simple and might be easy to use to understand the basic features and functions of UV mapping.
I've mainly just picked up bits and bobs from different tutorials and forum posts.
Don't know if I do it the best way, but it works for me. Here's the way I go about it:
It would be far easier to have a good 3d painting/texturing program, but I've not seen one yet that's good and cheap.
So can I use Ultimate Unwrap 3D Pro to generate my UV then open it in 3d coat and paint, having the benefit of both great things?
Of course... click the link, opens up the site no problem. Last update to the program was on 03-02-17.
Blender recently had an overhaul of UV functionality. While as stated pretty much unanimously the software does not do all the heavy lifting for you and to add to what McGuyver pointed out some of the tutorials can be frustrating and not very professional, here are two tutorials to consider which are not videos.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Textures/Mapping/UV/Unwrapping
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics
Yep.
Laurie
Thank you, Laurie!
..at 59$ that's not too bad if it is really good compared to what I've seen available for free.
...and it has text tutorials.
This what I get when I click the link
The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
I'll turn onmy VPN see if they are blocking AUS !
Yes that was it they are blocing AUS, and I remember I have a code for this wonder if it still works?
Thanks for the instructions, @cheetiot!
odd I have it and recently updated it
but I will admit seem missing the paint export feature needed to copy maps between meshes with different UV's
I even posted a thread about that
3DC has some excellent UV tools, especially for creating UV seams. You need to recalculate the islands once you have seams you're happy with. As far as I'm concerned it beats other UV mapping tools I have.
I purchased Ultimate Unwrap Pro (UUP) after I was unable to get the UV mappers that come with ZBrush to work to my satisfaction. Mostly, I use UUP to map models I’ve created with ZModeler, so I don’t have need (yet) for its more advanced features. There are UUP tutorials out there, but I had to sift through the info I found just to get the basics, so FWIW, here’s a mini tut on my (insert non-expert disclaimer here) workflow: in UUP Click File, Open, and navigate to your saved obj. file. Open file. The default layout of UUP is split into two views. The left is the UV Layout, the right is the “Perspective” view, where your 3D model will appear. To navigate the perspective view, use your scroll wheel to zoom, left click to rotate view. If your model has never been mapped, nothing will show in the UV Layout view. If your model doesn’t have textures yet, you’ll want to add a checkerboard pattern in order to get visible results of the mapping. If you don’t happen to have a checkerboard pattern .jpg, you’ll need to find one or make your own. I usually apply the one that comes with ZBrush before I export my model, but here’s how to apply one to your model in UUP: In the main toolbar, click File, Open, and navigate to your .obj file to open it. Click Select, All. Find the word “Materials” in the far right column. Right click on the word “None” (if “None” isn’t there because your model has no textures, right click on “Materials” and choose Add, which will give you “Untitled.”) Double click “None” or “Untitled” to open the Material Editor dialog box. Click the Maps tab. Under Texture Maps, Diffuse, click the down arrow and choose Bitmap. Click the Properties button to the right of the Bitmap button. In the Diffuse Map Properties dialog box, click on Change and navigate to your saved checkerboard .jpg. Click Open and then OK. Close the Material editor. If “None” your model will now have a checkerboard pattern. If “Untitled,” you won’t see anything until you map your model. With your model still selected, in the main tool menu, Click 2DTools, UV Mapping, and choose a UV map type. You'll see the checkerboard pattern change on your model. At this point, I just test apply all the different types until I find one that looks good. When finished, click File, Export, UV Map. In the Export UV Map dialog box under Outline Options, I generally change the “1” next to the Line, Point, and Edge sizes to “0,” but keep the rest as default. Save your UV mapped model and import into DAZ Studio. I pretty much exclusively use iray shaders on my models, and if I need separate surface areas, I create them with Geometry Editor. Hope this helps.
I'm sure it does but your going to get the best functionality by upgrading to the 64 bit version. I had allot of crashes using the 32 bit version.
silo is currently on sale for $50 (about a third) off, if anyone's interested. there's a discount code popup on the linked product page.
thanks for the recommendation, Mattymanx!
j
You're welcome.
ps, its not $50. Its $50 off the regualr price which will bring it down to $109
Most of them won't precisely place the various parts of the uv map; that's something you'll have to fine tune yourself, though depending on the complexity of the item, the initial UV maps can end up pretty close out of the box. I've been watching the tutorials that Sixus1 is doing for CGBytes, and while he generally uses UV Master in zBrush, he's almost always going to end up tweaking them in some way before being satisfied with them, even for stuff that he's not outright selling.
3D Coat works well also