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.
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.
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