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Rizom-Lab RizomUV Interview – Rémi Arquier, RizomUV’s Creator
June 1, 2018 – Excellent Interview by Rizom-Lab. Interview by , RizomUV’s Creator. Today, he talked about Rizom-Lab Updates and Renames its Unfold3D Software Suite to RizomUV.
What made you decide to change Unfold3D Software Suite to RizomUV?
After parting with the former Unfold3D publisher, there was some confusion about who owned the name and software code. Instead of having two products out there with the same name, we wanted to give our updates a new name and that’s RizomUV.
What are the latest features in RizomUV?
RizomUV contains new algorithms that can produce UV maps almost automatically. Whether your mesh comes from photogrammetry, a hand-modeled character, or a 3D building model, you will find automatic tools that will segment your mesh, unfold the newly created subparts, and then pack all of them in a single mouse click. While the result is not always perfect – game artists will still have to work using semi-automatic or manual tools, for instance – each tool will provide either a great starting point or in some cases, a good final candidate right away.
The other features concern the other features help artists be more productive when working on the manual and semi-automatic parts of the process. Among other things, the GUI as been re-organized, some texel density-related tools have been added, a nice polygon selection tool called ‘Polygon Magic Wand’ is also available for when edge selection becomes cumbersome.
What are the basic hardware requirements for RizomUV? Which software applications will it work with?
If your average poly count is around 10,000, a 8Gb workstation with a decent pair of processor and GPU will be ok. We recommend 16Gb and a good graphic card if your average is 100,000 polys. If you play with 1,000,000 polys at a time, you’ll need a beast.
Providing that your DCC application can correctly handle FBX (poly-meshes) and OBJ, it will be ok. We have Maya, Max, Modo, Cinema4D, Substance Painter, Mari, and Houdini users.
Developing and programming a piece of software is challenging! How did you manage that?
It is clearly a long-term job. You need to listen to end user feedback, define the needs, be up to date on the work of the scientific community, define reasonable goals, and be kind of passionate about math and programming.
How many days did it take to develop the RizomUV and what software did you use to develop it?
RizomUV’s source code is rather young, let’s say 2 years of writing, but the ideas and algorithms are the fruit of a dozen years of experience and investigation into polygon mesh processing, code architecture and GUI design, specifically dedicated to UV maps creation.
In terms of software, I used Visual Studio 2018 (Visual Studio Code for the Mac version), GitKraken and GitLab. I like well mastered, minimal approaches for my job.
RizomUV is a very popular UV Mapping software. How did it get that way?
When released in 2004, Unfold3D was one of the first commercial unwrapping software capable of automatically flattening 3D meshes and preventing distortion. At the time, almost no 3D texturing artists thought this could be done automatically, in a few seconds. Everyone was used to a manual process that took hours of hard work. I remember when I did the first demos, the community was astonished. But thanks to Unfold3D’s unwrapping algorithm and its user friendly GUI, it became a reference. In the years that followed, new features and versions of the main algorithms were created, allowing me to adapt to the user’s ever-evolving needs.
Today, RizomUV comes with the most advanced feature set ever created for a UV mapping tool and a licensing model that is well adapted to freelancers. The idea is to make UV maps creation process as productive as possible, while also offering better quality with less stretching than any other tool out there. RizomUV does this with ease. Something else that sets RizomUV apart is our packing algorithm, which highly utilizes UV space while providing excellent control over the way your mesh’s subparts are placed, scaled, oriented, grouped and stacked. Once you make your choices, your texels are then saved, and your UV layout can become how you want it to be, in less time and with less energy.
Any challenges you faced in creating RizomUV? Can you share some fun stories that happened during the creation of it?
Setting off on your own is always a challenging event, but I’ve found a lot of fun in plotting the course of RizomUV all by myself. I’ve always been the only driver behind the code, but now I also get to manage the commercial side. So it’s fun to introduce a new licensing model, new prices and new ways to communicate with the community.
Can you share something about RizomUV Virtual Spaces (VS) and RizomUV Real Space (RS)? What’s the difference?
RizomUV Real Space is the CAD declination. It works in a unnormalized UV space, which mean that your UV shells keep roughly the same dimensions they have in 3D space. In that RS version, your UV coordinates are real units and the UV shells have real dimensions. It is adapted when your UV shell borders serve as guides to laser cutting machines or when creating inputs for laser texturing machines, for instance. Among other things, the anti-stretching algorithm (which is called Optimize) works differently, but also the pinning feature will behave differently by keeping the original 3D polygons areas instead of the current UV polygons areas. The RS version can also create huge stamp bitmap files of the UV layout thanks to the BigTiff export feature.
What’s the story behind the RizomUV C++ Library? How does it work?
The RizomUV source code is cut into two parts. The first part contains the GUI’s code, the second contains all the algorithms. RizomUV C++ Library contains the second part and exposes all UV mapping features thru a C++ API. The goal is the integration of them into other DCCs and pipelines.
Tell us something about the RizomUV Online Store. What collections do you have in it?
We have divided users into two categories: INDIEs who earn less than 100,000€/y, and PROs that earn more than 100,000€/y. All of them can access a renting option, but only INDIEs can access the perpetual licenses and rent-to-own options. Also, INDIEs pay their licenses at less than the half of the PRO prices.
What about your future plan and upcoming projects? Anything you want to share with us?
We are working on better packing tools for stacked shells; an outliner to improve object selection, visibility and the global workflow; and new algorithms to increase the quality of fully automatic UV map generation. Also Sebastian Sulejewski is working hard on a node-based plugin for Houdini, the beta will start soon at Rizom-Lab.com.
A big thanks for your time.
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