Can I see UV's in object mode?

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#1

I have a complex model with many small parts that I am trying to merge into a single mesh. Unfortunately, when I do this I am frequently getting shifts in the UV’s (Lots of UDIM’s being used). Individual vertices jump to origin and the model is broken.

Sometimes the breakage is immediately evident. Other times is is more subtle.

I would like to see all of my UV’s as I merge the meshes to ensure that nothing changes as I do the merge. But I cannot seem to figure out how to see the UV’s of selected items when I am not in edit mode, but I cannot merge meshes when I am in edit mode.

Is there a way to see UV’s of selected objects in object mode?

Thanks.

#2

In the UV window you can select all vertices and pin them (shortcut P or righ-click > Pin) to make sure they don’t change, that should be enough.

#3

Oh, that is a super useful tip. Thanks!

#4

By merging I assume you mean joining the objects? In this case, if both objects have UV maps with the same name, they’re supposed to join together. But if they have differently-named UV maps, the resulting joined object will have multiple UV maps - that may be the reason for your UVs shifting.

#5

Yes, joining objects.

I’ll check that the UV’s are all in the same named map, though I suspect it is not the case. It appears that just random verts are shifting. I don’t know if this is a Blender bug or a consequence of me working remotely via Teradicci (essentially a screen sharing system). Blender seems to hang for a few seconds at a time in a way that I am not used to on my own system at home.

I also have to deal with the fact that Maya absolutely insists that its first UV map slot be named map1, and if it imports a model that does not have that, it just creates a new UV map slot if that name and suddenly I have two UV slots. Ugh!

In any event, your suggestions and help is greatly appreciated!

#6

Still trying to figure out the UV workflow in Blender…

I want to move a set of UV’s to a new UDIM now. But I have no idea which UDIM’s are free. In Maya I would just select all of the objects and I would immediately see the UV’s. In Blender it seems that I have to select all of the objects, then go into edit mode, then select all of the faces/vertices to see which UDIM’s are being used. But my model is fairly heavy so that process tends to crash Blender with a memory error (I run out of memory).

What would be the best way to see which UDIM’s are not currently being used? Thanks!

(My current workaround is to save the model to an alembic, open it in Maya, and check there - but for obvious reasons that is not an ideal solution. Not least of all that I really want to stay in Blender as much as possible because I like it so much better)

#7

In UV Editing you can enable UV Sync Selection (the top-left button) then you can see all UV for selected objects without having to select all vertices, but you will still have to enter edit mode.

#8

Thanks again for the quick reply!

I will do that. I really think there should be an option to see UV’s when selecting an object in object mode. I will submit a feature request to rightclickselect.