Join objects without destroying the UVs?

Support Materials and Textures
1

I have several parts of a model that I have uv unwrapped and textured and I want to make a game-ready model out of it. But how can I join all the objects into one without destroying the uvs?
(Bonus question that is less relevant: what are the best file formats to export to for in-game use that wont distort either the model or the uvs?)

2

just joining the meshes with ctrl j wont destroy the uv’s, it will simply stack them in the positions that they were originally unwrapped you’ll need to stitch your texture maps together in PS/gimp then carefully re locate the uvs into the correct positions on the map. not easy but not exactly difficult either, you just need to take your time with it.
if you mean connectong the meshes by merging actual vertices, then you will more than likely that you will need to start over with your textures. unless, if the connecting is a bit simple you might get away with keeping the islands seperated

3

Thanks for the reply. BTW, what if there objects with simple materials? When I join them there’s an object with multiple materials. Afterwards, when I’ll want to export it, will the multiple materials create problems? Thanks again…

4

the materials remain on the mesh that they are assigned to even if you join the objects. that applies to procedural and node based materials

5

Hi, I am having the same problem only when I click control J the UVs jumble together into a mess, they have been painted onto the mesh if that makes a difference

6

You kids, never giving things proper names. I’ll bet you all have armatures full of bones with names like “bone.0047” too. :no:

Give each object’s UV map a distinctive name first, then join. Your newly joined object will have two UV maps, each containing only the original object’s map. Each section of the mesh can have its own material and its own uvs now.

On the other hand, if you just leave the map with the generic name “UVMap” and join, the new object will only have one map with that name, since both of the original objects had maps with the same name. See the attached example. The object named Smart has two maps, nice and tidy. The object named Dumb has a jumbled mess of didn’t-name-stuff-properly-before-joining.

UVJoin.blend (624 KB) :cool:

1 Like
7

In Blender 2.8 is it currently possible to rename a UV map as K_Horseman suggests, and if so, how?

8

Just now i collided with that need and anyone knows fully automated way to join objects without destroyng UV-s as i used particles to create Christmas wreath but after converting particles and then joining pine texture based leaves to center mesh it destroys uv-s.

EDIT: Got it, there was sneaky one wrong character(Il) that i missed and after all uv map names was perfect then joining worked fine.