User Guide > Modeling > UV Texturing   

UV Brush

The UV Brush tool provides an artist friendly approach to editing UVs. Rather than editing each UV individually you can now work on groups of UVs with an appropriate falloff. This tool also works with symmetry to ensure accurate edits on both sides of a model.

The following lesson file starts where the UV pelting lesson left off. The same monkey file opens but this time the UVs are already unwrapped. From here you will make further edits to begin refining the UV layout.

Load Start File


1. Straighten out the Neck UVs

Select the monkey object then press i to go to this object's geometry level. In the UV viewport zoom in to the center of the neck area. Press tab > UVEdit. Next choose Select > Selection Type > Vertices from the Pane menu and select the vertex right at the center of the neck and RMB-click to accept. Press t to change your handle to translate mode and drag up along the V direction. Zoom out to see the whole neck.

Right now only one point has been moved. In the Operation Controls bar at the top of the Viewer pane, click-drag on the Soft Radius slider to create a falloff for the edit. At about 0.25 the neck area is straightened out. Now you can further drag the translate handle along the V direction to see the results in the Perspective viewport with the falloff intact.


2. Adjust some more UVs

Turn off Select > Secure Selection then click on a vertex in the monkey's crotch area and RMB-click to accept. Drag down along the V axis which uses the same falloff as your last edit. Lower the Soft Radius to about 0.1. This area is now straightened out.

3. Drag UVs with the UV Brush

In the UV Viewport, press tab > UVBrush. Press a to select all the vertices then RMB-click to accept. In the Parameter pane, click on the Brush tab, set UV Radius to 0.05 and Opacity to 0.5. Next, go to the Symmetry tab and turn on UV Reflective.

In the UV Viewport, LMB-brush some vertices in the chest area to push them around. The symmetry settings make sure that the edits are affecting both sides of the model. Be sure to watch the Perspective view to watch the affect these edits are having on the resulting UV layout.


4. Smooth the UVs

In the UV viewport, press Ctrl-RMB and select Smooth under Middle Mouse Operation. You can now access the Drag operation with your LMB and the Smooth Operation with your MMB. It is important that you change your operation using the Ctrl-RMB menu instead of the Operation setting in the Parameter pane because the menu method lets you define an operation for both mouse buttons and gives more predictable results.

Now MMB-brush on the parts of the model to smooth out and relax the UVs. Basically the goal of this operation is to create evenly spaced UVs. You might notice that if you paint near the outer boundary of the UV layout, the boundary is not affected. If you were to LMB-Brush on the same area then the boundary would be affected by the default drag.


5. Brush UVs in the Perspective view

Move your cursor over to the Perspective view. The brush radius is looking small here. In the Parameter pane, go to the Brush tab and set the Radius to 0.4. Click on the Symmetry tab and turn on Reflective. Next set the Axis to 1 0 0. Now you have one radius for the perspective view and a UV radius for the UV viewport.

MMB-brush in the Perspective view to smooth your UVs directly on the model. This gives you great feedback as you watch the UVs relax right under your brush.

Now LMB-brush on the model in the Perspective view. The vertices are now moving on both sides of the model but their direction is not reflecting. Press Ctrl-z to undo. For reflective dragging you should work in the UV Viewport unless you are dragging up and down along the V axis in which case reflective symmetry is not needed.


Conclusion

The ability to create generalized edits using both the UV Edit and the UV Brush tools gives the texture artist strong tools for laying out UVs. Once you have a good starting point using tools such as UV Pelt, these tools will help you refine your work.