Prepping for Zombie Details with UV Unwrapping - Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity - page 98

Figure 4.23
The UV/Image
Editor with the
Stretch option
enabled
With the UV seams you've used on the zombie model, your UV islands should appear
blue: this is a good thing. The Stretch command measures the amount that a given face is
distorted from its shape in the actual mesh and shows it as a color ranging from blue to
red. Blue is displayed when the face is not stretched, whereas red shows when the face is
very stretched. This is a useful tool when unwrapping objects, as it can show you how dis-
torted your polygons are before you go through the work of painting UVs.
Another use for this view mode is in laying out your UVs. When you're unwrapping
complex geometry, it is not uncommon for geometry to criss-cross on itself, resulting in
polygons on top of other polygons in the UV/Image Editor. Monitoring the stretching of
your geometry is one way to find problems quickly and fix them.
Another useful tool in this mode is the Minimize Stretch tool (Ctrl+V). If you find
yourself in a situation where your model's UVs are overly stretched, Blender can relax the
UVs for you. Once it comes up with its own solution, you can then use the mouse wheel
to decide how much relaxing you want to end up with. You can try it now; if properly
unwrapped, your model should be showing as almost completely blue.