TUTORIAL HOW TO Unfold projects in Pepakura Designer by Spartansonny

This tut is for designer, not viewer. viewer only VIEWS, designer edits
Okay so a little about this, I suck at typing so
1. this is gonna take me awhile :0
2. I suck at typing
3. if there are any flaws please let me know through a PM
4. this is my first ever tutorial on ANYTHING in a forum in my life of 31 years
5. if there is anything someone can add than please by all means, message me and let me know, I would be more than happy to add it in.
6. I won't be unfolding the whole helmet in this, I will just be showing the basics and we will be doing the mouth, rebreathers, cheeks, and search lights

PLEASE FOLLOW THIS TUT STEP BY STEP, THAT IS HOW I DESIGNED IT, IF YOU SKIP A PROCESS AND JUST SKIM IT YOU MIGHT MISS SOMETHING IMPORTANT
So on that note lets get started.

A little about how I got started in the unfold business end of this wonderful hobby that I have come to enjoy so much. I , like everyone else wanted unfolded projects and I searched and searched the web hi and low to try and find a tut and none of the ones I found were very good to me. they were either very confusing or not very detailed, so I had to go through and learn from all these different tuts that I found how to do it myself, I fused together all the stuff I found and learned what did what, and still to this day I find new things all the time. I am by no means a pro at pep, i unfold them how i think would be good for a project to be assembled. I saw all these cool files that weren't unfolded and waited... and waited... and waited, but everyone was busy with life, current unfolds, personal issues that consumed them and some that just didn't want to anymore because people nitpick at everything they do so i set off to teach myself how to unfold and its working out fairly well I think :/ you guys can be the judge of that lol.

Now I am the kind of person that thinks if I want something and its not out there yet, than I have to do something about it and do it myself. No one else unfolded a paper version of monkeyfujs Halo 4 recon, all i saw was a foam version. so thats where i started for my first official unfold release because no one else had even started a paper version that i know of. So i set to do it myself.

But us today, we are gonna start on a much more simple model, the halo 1 MK V modeled by Rundown,

THANKS TO RUNDOWN FOR THE MODEL

Lets do this, so go HERE and download the file from my 4 shared. it is just as it looks in pep ready to go.
When you open an obj or pdo it will be different,First it will tell you what its doing... like XXX data, XXX vertices, XXX objects were deleted for normilization- Click okay Than it will say it may take awhile to assemble-Click okay. After that it will ask you some questions, like flip faces (no) ask which side is the front (color coded, select the proper color for relation to the models face, i usually just click finish and don't change a thing) than it tells you how many edges were merged-click okay.

So basic functions. Right click and hold on on the 3d window (left window) and it rotates the model, hold left and right mouse buttons, this pans it left, right, up, down. Mouse wheel zooms in and out

After all that hooplah you will be left with your fresh model like the above picture shows.
From here i go to the "specify open edge" button at the very top of all the small thumbnails, looks like a cutter

and I specify what edges i want to divide. Pep when it opens the file naturally shows the edges closed, so you get the chance to go through and denote what you want to open first. If you don't do this than pep will open almost all edges (the shapes) in the model. So select the tool and left click where you think you want a general divide aka your initial pattern and it will give you a single orange line now

Double click and it goes through the whole section at where the mark begins and ends
like so
So run through real quick and see what you come up with on the top of the dome and come back, play a little. Nothing wrong with that.
Now that you are back check what you have, i went and double clicked through it, this is what I got

but some of that isn't reasonable to me

inside the square has some divisions that i don't think are necessary

so we single click the lines we want to get rid of and rejoin those edges and I made it look like this

I took some of the orange lines away (where it divides) and added some towards the back to follow the divided lines at the top of the dome.
So after running through double clicking, single clicking, adding and removing this is what I have


when you are happy with what you have read on to the next post. no need to rush though, its not going anywhere

So now we are gonna hit the unfold button at the top... it says unfold at this point i save my file. It doesn't hurt to save periodically mind you. And by that I mean everytime you walk away, everytime you take a break, everytime you switch a window if need be.
It will now give you an auto unfolded pattern, this is where I set my scale. go to the 2d window and go to (2d menu-change scale-scale factor-300 width)... i start at 300 wide. i don;t know why i use width, thats just what i do. No reason at all. now it will enlargen the patterns. Go back into the 2d window and turn off the flaps for now, (2d menu-turn off flaps) makes it easier to see your patterns. and what you are playing with. It should look something like this now

All your patterns are now unfolded, flapless, and need to be made to fit. First thing first, set your paper size and margins.

Settings-print and paper settings-NEW WINDOW POPS UP
I use A4 size paper- margins at 5 , it works for me. Edit what I showed you
So now we are gonna go through and divide and connect the pieces. What I like to do is make things look symmetrical and the same on both sides of the models, I imagine everyone does.

So now some basic functions in the 2d window. I suggest floating over the thumbnails and get familiar with what each button is right now
quick list of hotkey buttons stock in pepakura designer which I use the most
(Ctrl+N) DIVIDE AND CONNECT FACES
(CTRL+R) ROTATE PIECES
(CTRL+M) MOVE PIECES
(CTRL+F) EDIT FLAPS
(CTRL+Z) UNDO (One of my best friends here)
(CTRL+Y) REDO (YOU NEVER KNOW IF YOU WANNA BACKTRACK TO SOMETHING PRIOR)
(CTRL+K) check correspondence of pieces

Now that you understand that somewhat whats going on lets get to the real work that makes the bang in the boom.
Dividing, connecting, placing
so hit CTRL+K and lets find a piece to start on and work from. This function lets you see where the part lies in the 3d window and the 2d window
in the 3d window it highlites your object and shows a parts list (redundant), in the 2d window it outlines a red square on your object. this is helpful if you get lost, need to find a part, or wanna see what edges it connects to real quick . so find the middle of the face in between the rebreathers (the mouth) and click, bam you just got your starting piece, pat yourself on the back, its on now

so you might not have what i have but see the red box? that is my mouthpiece.

Now press CTRL+N and let us say we want to connect a face to the mouth piece
you can do this one of two ways, connect in the 3d window by clicking the edge you want to connect and you will see it connect in both windows. Or do like i prefer and use almost all the time... click the edge of your piece in the 2d window, watch it connect, and it still shows in both windows. So click the left side of the mouth and you will see a red edge line, a red line with an arrow head, and if panned out far enough it will show you where its gonna connect to the other part. The arrow denotes which part is gonna move in what direction.

Click on the left side of the mouth, once to highlite, twice to connect. now your rebreather is connected, do the same for the other side.

oh but wait Sonny, its all wonkified and not even. Well my answer is divide and connect faces to make it even like how you want it come out, I opted to do this, i showed one side wonky and one side unfolded nicely how i like it. this part here is all about how you the unfolder likes it to come out, but I will say this, a good unfolder in my opinion thinks about the population of people that will be using these, and you want to make it easy for everyone. Think of it like you want to build this and you want it to be as simple as possible. It is your name going on the project too, whether you modeled it or not.

lets say you have something to big to fit on the paper, than you divide it to make it fit but still keep a good easy to fold pattern.

now that our parts are seperated i am gonna lay them out. lets take a small break, its a good idea to freshen up your head. And also because I have been typing for awhile now

okay time to lay out our pattern

Each rectangle in the background is the paper it will be printed on so we need to lay our parts down inside of them. So you can either CTRL+M to move your parts where you like and just lay them in there, sometimes this might work, but lets do it properly, hit CTRL+R. this rotates and also moves pieces. you will have a bunch of red circles on the vertice of each part, panned out it looks goofy, panned in it clears up. so we are gonna move the pieces like we want to lay them out and rotate them to fit nicely and also save ourselves some paper waste as much as possible. THis what I have, maybe you do too.



THis is the mouth piece, rebreathers, cheeks, and search lights laid out.

SAVE YOUR PROGRESS!

ALMOST DONE YAY

So now its laid out, things look nice and we want to get ready for finalizing. Turn your flaps back on (2d menu-turn on flaps) but they look crazy? like crazy big,
its okay hit CTRL+F the edit flaps window comes up

click the change flaps button, the windows extends and show you what you can change. I do not change angles or anything else, just the size. I use 5mm high size flaps
Click the "apply to all flaps" button another window will pop up asking to set all flaps to this size, click okay.

now your flaps are manageable and look much nicer. if you don't like where a flap sits and want the flap on the other object it connects to instead (the opposite side)
than hover over your flap in FLap edit mode (CTRL+F) and watch it turn red- right click- switch flap position. Congrats if you are still here this far!

So after its all laid out... proper size, placement, satisfaction better than a snickers candy bar I like to check for overlapping parts (2d menu-check overlapping parts). any overlaps will be red, move until it goes away. preview the print to see if any of the pieces are over there margin. if this happens than the object/;piece will be cut off from the paper. Not so proper. Go back and find the piece move it to a proper location that it wont get cut off than SAVE.

CONGRATS! YOU ARE GOOD TO GO AND PRINT YOUR NEWLY UNFOLDED PEP

sO GOOD JOB 405TH, I hope this helps out you guys that want to learn how to unfold. Remember save lots! I hope you all enjoyed this text and I hope it makes sense to you :/

PS: you guys are awesome. Thanks to everyone here, loving this community more and more

AND ONE MORE NOTE
PLease do not converse, talk, explain how, etc etc how to gain a crack, get pep for free, a keygen program and all that jazz. Not everyone supports it here and this forum is not designed for that kind of talk in public.

THanks!

Sonny

It's nice to see a Pepakura tutorial thread!

Hmm, I usually just press Unfold and then proceed to join/disjoin edges until I'm happy with the results; then I start to rotate and move pieces and try to minimize paper use while also keeping enough space between parts so that cutting it with a utility knife does not require too much care.

Then again I'm using my own 3D models and I'm aiming for foam builds, and I try to keep things as simple as possible

thanks vargatom. I like to keep it simple as well, but than I wanted everyone that reads this to know all of the basics and how those basics work

I would like to be the first one to say that this is highly sticky worthy! Great directions and easy to follow, my hat is off to you good sir.

spencers12 said:

I would like to be the first one to say that this is highly sticky worthy! Great directions and easy to follow, my hat is off to you good sir.

Click to expand...

Spencers thanks! You don't know how much that means. I am all nervous thinking it doesn't make sense at all like the tuts I found on the net that weren't very clear at all. Your comment just gave me a confidence boost

spencers12 said:

I would like to be the first one to say that this is highly sticky worthy! Great directions and easy to follow, my hat is off to you good sir.

Click to expand...

I second that. Great tutorial.

thanks guys!

good tutorial. i have some experiences in unfolding too, but you should add an other way. the pre-cut for the unfold.
using the tools on top to pre adjust the unfolding lines. for complex models you will get a creepy unfold if you hit the buttom instantly after loading the object.

but for LD files is your tutorial perfect.

harican89 said:

good tutorial. i have some experiences in unfolding too, but you should add an other way. the pre-cut for the unfold.
using the tools on top to pre adjust the unfolding lines. for complex models you will get a creepy unfold if you hit the buttom instantly after loading the object.

but for LD files is your tutorial perfect.

Click to expand...

thanks harican. this was made for basic models, nothing complex as I am still teaching myself some functions in pep. if you want to add something in here and have specifics i will be more than happy to add it and credit you for it i do precut everything before i start and than press the unfold button than go from there connecting and dividing until i am happy with it.

Thank you very much. Its great help!

Rookie117 said:

Thank you very much. Its great help!

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hey rookie117, i am glad this helps you out! i wamted to make a trouble free, easy tut for people to learn how to unfold since when i started the ones i found were extremely vague and also outdated, i hope when you put it to use it works out well for you.

Hello!

I'm a beginner unfolder and I had a question in regards to unfolding and wondered if you could help or point me in the direction. I have found some Monster Hunter weapons .obj files and would like to unfold some of them and then make them. Unfortunately some models have what I guess you would call "floating" parts where it's not actually attached or intersecting parts and thus makes the unfolding and building process tricky. What would one do to fix the 3d model to make it more unfolding friendly?

Thanks

I really enjoy the tut! I am assuming that it goes the same has for a whole suit as it did for the helm. I have a file I a need unfolded but it is the whole suit. Would recommend breaking it up in Photoshop or another program? I Have never unfolded before and really want to make this armor for DC next year. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Wow, thanks for this, I have tried to use the divide tool this whole time.

Thanks so much i specially signed to the forum to thank you for a great tutorial

Good tutorial, I think I might try it later!