Small Islands vs Less Seams?

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#1

Hey hey,

in the lecture to the end grantt splits up a big island and I was wondering why we would want to do that. I thought we wanted as few seams as possible and the main body looked to unwrap just fine.

(Edit: Its around 14:50 in the lecture)

I am asking specifically because I actually managed to get away with only one seam for the main body from the shoulder top to the head:

BigIslandQuestion_UnwrapViewWhole
BigIslandQuestion_UnwrapViewWhole2749×1980 1.13 MB

It might be considered a big island. Also one might worry that the throat part on the center left might be stretching, but I think it actually managed to unwrap just fine as you can see in the full view here:

BigIslandQuestion_UnwrapUVEditorOnly
BigIslandQuestion_UnwrapUVEditorOnly2383×1784 1.45 MB

I think I will go ahead with my unwrap for now, but if you know something that might be a dealbreaker down the line with my current version please let me know.

Now to a specific question: are there downsides to big islands? And if so how do we trade off more seams for smaller islands? As in whats your thought process.

Thank you so much!

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#2

There’s nothing wrong with your larger islands other than there is more unused space. Remember you have x pixels by y pixels image that you are assigning so many pixels for each face. If you’re getting enough details(pixels) for your needs then there is absolutely nothing wrong with a large island. It’s a balancing act. Since in this case you’re texture painting on the mesh there is less of a problem with seams since blender will match up the faces as you paint. Textures created other ways can be more noticeable or more difficult to match up where the seams are. Like if you use Photoshop for example.

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#3

Thats actually a really good explanation. I havent thought of that at all. You are right, Grantt also told us in the lecture that seams wont affect us much in here and I checked when unwrapping. I really end up with less empty space on my texture map. Thank you for the tipp, will keep it in mind :slight_smile:

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#4

If you have many seams and small islands, then painting on a surface can be difficult because the painted texture should match between islands. I try to have large islands.

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#5

good tipp, will keep that in mind. I guess I need to get a feeling for which islands are too big and when to add seams, but not overdo it

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#6

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