novice> UV_Flatten vs UV_Unwrap vs UV_Pelt when to use each

[art3mis]

Trying to get my head wrapped around(pun intended) UV mapping in Houdini.

But confused as every tutorial I've followed suggests a different tool to use.

Are there any guidelines or best practices for choosing between Unwrap, Flatten and or Pelt?

Is the type of geometry the determining factor?

Also, the only recent tutorial I can find is this one going over UV Flatten

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/uv-flatten/

Are there any others that are more comprehensive?

 

Edited August 3, 2016 by eco_bach

[f1480187]

UV Flatten is a modern node. It is how manual unwrap should be done in most cases. And it includes uv packer similar to UV Layout. Pelting is an ancient technique of unfolding islands. I think you shouldn't use this node for general unwrapping. It provides some interesting algorithms which may be used in procedural effects. You can assign uvs to position, for example. In some rare cases UV Flatten outputs strange results, especially for long and thin details. Aggressive pelting may do the job there.

UV Unwrap is a simple planar projector and packer. It mostly used to apply box-mapping and pack everything into a unique texture. Currently, it is a sole solution to auto-generate UVs for arbitrary input meshes like a creature or a rock. It does not compete with UV Flatten, and may be used in conjunction with it and Vertex Split node.

Don't forget that there is UV Project and UV Texture nodes also, some geometry may be unwrapped with them more efficiently, planar and cylindrical, for example. UV Project may be better for planar projections, while UV Texture contains ones like Perspective from Camera, Face and spline methods which can be used to compute curve's U in 0..1 range. And to complete list, UV Fuse, UV Brush, UV Edit and UV Transform are "uv versions" of corresponding SOP nodes dedicated to UV viewport.

Edited August 4, 2016 by f1480187
typos

[art3mis]

Thanks. This community is fantastic. Now just need to find tutorials.

[Nicholas Ralabate]

UV Flatten is all you need to do traditional manual UVs, it lets you draw seams and unwrap and pack: