Parameters

There are several settings under three sections. These settings must be done before picking the object.

1-Image Size:

These two fields hold the result bitmap’s size in pixels. The max size for both fields is 4096. If the image size is large, image viewer may not be able to show it in 1:1 scale. In this case you will see a bad image on the viewer but the saved image will be OK.

2- UVW Channel:

This determines the mapping channel that is to be used in unfolding process. If the chosen mapping channel of the picked object does not contain any mapping info a warning dialog box will appear.

3- Pick Object

When you push this button Texporter wants you to pick an object to unwrap. When unwrapping the current settings will be used. If you change any of the settings, the image will not update itself: you should pick the object again.

4-Display:

Polygon Fill:

If checked, the faces will be shown as filled areas using the color scheme selected in the "Colorize by" section.

Edges:

If you check this option the face edges will be shown in the resulting image. You can choose to show all edges or only the visible ones.

Wrap Around:

For circular mapping types (such as cylindrical and spherical), to achieve seamless tiling, some faces may get negative mapping coordinates (or values greater than 1.0) . Normally such faces fall outside the unfolded image (because of their out-of-range value) and therefore when you fold back the unfolded image on your mesh you get a black region because of this missing info. To correct this check the "Wrap Around" option. When you do so, out-of-range mapping coordinates will be inserted back into the image from the opposite side. For planar mapping types simply leave this option unchecked.

Backface Cull:

If checked, the result image will not show the faces whose normals are pointing away from the mapping icon. This results a more clear image but prevents you from checking all the overlapped surfaces.

Only Selected:

If checked only the selected faces of the object will be unfolded and shown. This gives less complex and more clear output which can be used if you want to paint only some part of the object.

Only ID:

If checked only the faces with the given material ID will be unfolded and shown. Again this gives less complex and more clear output. If you are working on a object with a multi-sub material assigned, this helps you to paint individual textures for each sub material.

Mark Overlaps:

When applying UVW texture coordinates, you can not always get a perfect mapping; there may be areas which share the same UV coordinate. This means some faces use the same texture region, in other words if you paint a texture for an area, the same texture will be shown somewhere else on the object's surface (where the same UV is used). To avoid this you should choose the most proper mapping type.

When you turn on this option, these overlapping areas will be marked in the given color showing you where overlapping occurs.

5-Colorize by:

Smooth Colors:

This is very similar to MAX's viewport "Smooth" and "Facet" options. When "Smooth Colors" option is activated the faces will be filled with smooth gradient colors interpolated between the vertices. If this option is turned off, on the other hand, faces will be filled with constant colors. This option is not available for some of the colorizing schemes (and ofcourse if the "Polygon Fill" option is turned off).

Option	Result
Constant	Uses the color given in the color swatch net to this option.
XYZ	The color information will hold the edges’ XYZ position in their local coordinate system. Red channel holds the X information with Min X represented as black (Min intensity) and max X with pure Red (max intensity). Similarly Green holds Y and Blue holds Z values.
Face Normals	RGB channels will represent normal vector’s direction of the vertex. RGB channels will match to XYZ components of the normal vector respectively. You can easily locate face’s orientation by looking its color (especially if the object is convex).
W (Mapping depth)	This will generate black for Min W values and white for max W values. W can be considered as vertex’s distance from mapping gizmo.
Selection	This section will produce Red for selected faces and white for the others. This option can be used to distinguish a certain part of the object. To select faces first apply “Edit Mesh” modifier to your object and with “face sub-object” selected do your selection.
Material ID	Faces with different material ID will be shown in different colors.
Face Area	The faces with large surface areas will be shown in red while the faces with small areas will be shown in yellow. This may help you to determine the needed detail in particular area.
Vertex Color	If you chose this option, the object should have assigned vertex colors (otherwise you get an error message). If the object has vertex colors, the faces and/or edges will be drawn in those colors. You may use MAX's standard "Assign Vertex Colors" utility to get shaded, very realistic vertex colors, and you can unfold this with Texporter, which gives the impression of unfolded clay model :o)