UV unwrap - export wire frame for texture painting?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Hello,

I’m wondering how I export the wire frame of an unwrapped surface for texture painting ala Photoshop.

When I texture unwrap a surface I can see the flattened wire frame on the unwrap plane I’ve drawn. Now how do I export it for painting so I can re-import it with the texture properly positioned?

any help would be much appreciated.

2

bump

3

There’s no direct “export UV wireframe” command, at least as far as I know.
However _ViewCaptureToFile will do the trick. A quick bit of cropping in PS and you are good to go.

4

Ahhh, that’s a shame. Seems like a feature that would make sense given the nature of unwrapping.

I see what your saying. Thanks for the input

5

So - just to make completely clear what you are asking for:

The ability to export a top view of the the current UV Editor mesh as a PNG file (for example).

Is that correct?

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6

Yes, exactly, that would be great.

To export a 2D image with the wire frame (preferably an option for all edges or just the seams ) over the texture, or a white background for taking into Photoshop so that you can paint textures to be applied to the unwraped object. I believe this is common in other 3d applications that cater more to visualization.

below is an example of how it works in 3D max

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7

Hi @jazzcat81,

you might try the TxTemplate plugin in Rhino4 and likely it still works in Rhino5 to create texture templates from meshes with various controls. Note that you´ll need the rhpicture plugin installed to make it work: link

c.

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8

Thanks for the input. I think it might just be easier to take a screen shot and be careful with the cropping.

Really hoping this feature will make it into the next update or version. That would be great.

9

You can do that using 3DCoat. I’d say it’s even better than Substance Painter as it feels a bit more like a photoshop in 3D. To export the wireframe for painting, in the PAINT tab clic on Textures / Export / Color Albedo Map.
It will export a PSD with a color layer (if any paint have been done in 3DCoat) AND the wireframe, ultra clean, on a transparent background.
Best way I know :slight_smile:

10

(first of all add up extend UV lenghtes of your future unwraped object. now Unwrap. )

activate “UVEditor” and take over UV measures as bounding box. adjust mesh. now with the still active UVEditor select the unrolled vertex/mesh in planar view and than “export selected” to any vector-programm
e.g as .AI/.eps

i use illustrator. delete the unnecessary paths, keep the boundaries, adjust the artboardsize to all boundaries,
create your texture, hide paths, “save for web”… works like a charm!

late answer but still… hope that helps!

11

@CJ, did you see my reply above ?

_
c.

12

this is the sweet! can somebody make this work for Rhino 6?

or even better, implement .psd file support like in maya… this would be a workflow-dream come true:

  1. export texture mapping as psd file.
  2. let you draw on different layers which in turn trigger transparency, bumpmaps etc…
  3. updates mapping live, when saving in photoshop.

here is a video of how they do in maya

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