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Unwraping Objects:

In order to Unwrap an object in Diamant Modeling Tool, you first need to mark edges and any Ancor points you might want. Once you have edges marked, simply clicking the Unwrap Button will do the unwraping for you. This can be done by either having an object selected, highlited, or faces selected.

Lets look at an example for unwraping using the Normal Unwrap method

In this example, we will want to have a couple different cut point or Marked Edges. The most logical points of marking are the neck area, back of the head to allow the face to do a proper unwrap, the bottom of the base of the torso, and a cut on the back to allow the chest to unwrap properly.

Here are the finished edge Markings

This first example I will not use any Ancor Points to show the difference between the results you will get with the unwrap. Once you have the edges marked, click the Unwrap Button on either the object level, or highlight component level. You can also select a face to unwrap only the contained faces as well. An example will be provided afterwards.

NOTE: multiple objects can be unwraped at the same time by selecting multiple objects at once and clicking the unwrap button. Note, an object can be unwrapped with no edges marked. It will use the natural border edges as the seams. If there are no natural borders, you will get an unwrap that folds in on itself.

This is the result of the automatic UV generation. As you can tell, the face is not symmetrical. However, it did a pretty good job at keeping other parts of the shells symmetrical. In order to achieve a more symmetrical unwrap, you can set Ancor points on the mesh.

Ancor points were set on the center symmetrical vertices on the marked edges. Setting these will cause the results shown above. A much more symmetrical uv layout is achieved by placing ancor points at correct spots on the mesh. A single face was selected on the face which caused both the face and mid torso to get re unwraped while keeping the bottom section the same. The only reason the mid torso got re uved is because an ancor point touched both shells. This is planned on getting fixed in the future.

The above 2 pictures illustrate what happens when you select a single face and click the Unwrap button. Diamant Modeling Tool will select all the faces that lie within the cut shell and unwrap those.. This is a quick way to re-uv a shell without having to select all the faces in the shell first. Select a single face and let the tool do the work!

Straight Unwrap:

The above mesh is not an ideal candidate for the straight unwrap method. This would be the results of using straight unwrap

not very pretty. Straight unwrap will map each face to a 0-1 value and then connect them back for a uniform unwrap. This is extremely helpful when wanting to unwrap objects such as hair strands, or straight box like pieces. Lets show an example.

This is a common hair piece that one might use in real time games. As you can see, the hair strand bend in multiple directions in 3d space. Typically, you would want the uv's to run straight up and down to achieve a convincing hair look. This can be achieved by uving the piece prior to moving it around in 3d. However, sometimes that is not the easiest thing to do. This is where straight unwrap comes in.

the image on the left is using Normal Unwrap. As you can see, it tries to find the best shape for you. This is not ideal for texturing a hair strand. The image on the right is using Straight unwrap. As you can see, you get an even distribution accross the uvs. Notice that no edges needed to be marked in order to unwrap this object since there are natural border edges to the object. I just selected the object, and clicked the Unwrap button with Straight Unwrap selected as the option. Simple!!

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