Actions panel: Manual UV Mode

In Manual mode, the Actions panel displays the UV Mode: Manual label and helpers for manual UV manipulation. The Manual mode provides the following functionality to help you with texture mapping:

  • The Project UVs section provides different UV projection methods.
  • The Selection section allows you to expand which UV elements are selected.
  • The Edit section provides manipulation functionality.

UV Editor in Manual UV mode

To access this panel, either click the Convert to Manual button from the Actions panel in Auto UV Mode, or click the UV Vertex edit mode UV Vertex or UV Edge edit mode UV Edge edit mode buttons.

Tip: If you get to the point where you have been making a lot of edits and something seems wrong but you're not sure how to fix it, you can clear all the edits. To do this, navigate to the UV Mode: Auto Actions panel and click the Reset UVs button.

To switch back to the Actions panel in Auto UV Mode and convert all selected faces to Auto UVs, click the Convert to Auto button.

Tip: Before you start to manipulate UVs manually, make sure you delete any faces that you don't need. For example, if you have a box that is sitting against the wall and doesn't move, delete the face pressed up against the wall. It is a waste of resources to render faces that aren't visible.

Project UVs

Select how you want ProBuilder to project the UVs: using the Planar or Box projection method.

Planar

Unwraps the selected face(s) using a Planar projection method.

Planar projection onto a 2-dimensional Mesh

Planar projection draws the texture on an entire image as if it is projected from a single plane. That is, image travels perpendicularly from the virtual projection plane onto the surface.

Box

Unwraps the selected face(s) using a Box projection method.

Box projection onto a 3-dimensional Mesh

Box projection is like applying planar projection from all six planes at once. This type of projection is ideal for boxes and other 3-dimensional flat objects.

Selection

There are two selection helpers you can use to expand which UV elements are selected: Select Island and Select Face.

Select Island

With a UV element selected, click this to expand the selection so that it includes all other connected UV elements.

Expand selection from one face to all connected faces

Select Face

With a Vertex or Edge selected, click to select all elements on the same face.

Expand selection from one vertex to all vertices on the face

Edit

ProBuilder provides a number of manual manipulation features for working in the UV Editor: welding vertices; splitting and collapsing UVs; flipping UV elements horizontally and vertically; and resizing UV elements to match the UV space.

Weld

Weld collapses selected vertices together, but only if they are within a set distance.

To adjust the distance modifier, click the + button on the right side of the Weld button.

Reduce edges that are near to a single edge

For example, it is good practice to use a low value, such as 0.01. Then you can select all of the UVs at the same time and use Weld to reduce duplicate UV vertices. This is an important step if you are planning on autostitching, because it requires faces to be adjacent, and duplicate edges produce undesired results.

Collapse UVs

Collapse UVs collapses all selected vertices to a single vertex, regardless of distance.

Reduce vertices selected across multiple islands to a single vertex

Split UVs

Split UVs breaks off the selected UV element(s) from any UV element(s), so that you can manipulate them independently.

Break face off from the island

Flip Horizontal

Flip Horizontal flips the selected UV element(s) in the horizontal direction.

Mirror island horizontally

Flip Vertical

Flip Vertical flips the selected UV element(s) in the vertical direction.

Mirror island vertically

Fit UVs

Use Fit UVs to scale and move the selected UV element(s) to fit them exactly within the UV space.

Expand the island to occupy as much of the space as possible

Autostitching

Usually, to unwrap UV faces, you need to manually position each one individually and weld the UV vertices together. Autostitching performs this automatically.

You can autostitch any two adjacent faces together. To do this, follow this procedure:

  1. Select a face in the Scene view.

  2. Open the UV Editor window and switch to UV Face editing mode.

  3. Select a face on the Mesh and then Ctrl+Click a face that shares an edge with the current selection.

    Important: Use the Ctrl key for both macOS and Windows.

  4. You can continue to Ctrl+Click one face at a time as long as it is adjacent to the selected face.

Autostitching allows you to control how ProBuilder projects the Texture image across the Mesh. It is like building a UV quilt that uses planar projection.

Copy UVs

You can copy UVs from one face to another. For example, if you are working on a barrel and you want to copy the UVs from the top face to the bottom, follow these steps:

  1. Open the UV Editor. ProBuilder can only perform UV editing tasks when the UV Editor is open.

  2. In the Scene view, select the face you want to copy from.

  3. Ctrl+Shift+Click on the face you want to copy to.

    Important: Use the Ctrl key for both macOS and Windows.

  4. You can continue to Ctrl+Shift+Click each face you want to copy to.