maya texturing - whole process greatly confusing

# 1 25-05-2010 , 05:19 PM

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maya texturing - whole process greatly confusing

I am looking for other Maya tutorial videos on UV mapping, unwrapping and texturing .... the whole process of taking the model and putting a texture on it and photoshop texturing........ whole process if that makes any sense?? I don't want a video on working in photoshop, but I don't know how to get the texture "off" the model and then like work on the texture in photoshop and have the texture reflect my work in realtime in maya??

I know 3dsmax can do this because in my search for videos on maya texturing I found some in 3dsmax that can do it real time but can maya do that too? I see I can load a material-file-.psd file but I can't make it do anything. It's trial and error for me basically. I use maya 2009 unlimited.

Maybe I've got it all wrong but I thought modeling was hard and now it's easy but texturing is really super hard for me. I need to figure out how to do this to become a better artist. Googling 'maya texturing' is damn near useless for me.

Can I please get some help here?? Thank you

cahemdue@hotmail.com

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# 2 26-05-2010 , 09:25 PM

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Hi n88tr
Didgital tutorials do a good one on maya and photoshop for a rapture, texturing is not a problem it mainly creating the UVs that can be a pain................dave

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# 3 28-05-2010 , 07:07 PM

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UV mapping is not hard, it is irritating.

Personally, I have always found the Maya's UV mapping tools are quite inadequate for fast & comfortable work flow.

But, there are lots of other free tools out there.I suggest you,to start by the tutorials that comes with Maya.

Then you can change your taste...use RoadKill...or anything...

Few months back, I have found a cool UV mapping script.It is called Pelt UV mapping.

https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/do...ing/c/pelt-mel

check it out.I am not sure, if it the latest version.

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# 4 06-06-2010 , 05:04 PM

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What about a beginners tutorial for uv mapping in maya? I google stuff like that and get 31 million hits... if someone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

Like how to uv map and texture a crate or something?

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# 5 06-06-2010 , 05:14 PM

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Something like this would be a basic UV.......hope this helps dave

https://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutori...uring/248.html

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# 6 06-06-2010 , 09:41 PM

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K, bit confused here... why'd you post two of the same thread:
https://srv01.simply3dworld.com/showt...820#post304820
and then complain about no good responses?

Check out the maya help tutorials for a good intro to UV mapping.

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# 7 07-06-2010 , 04:12 AM

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I personally despise pelt mapping applications. They always seem slower than just automatically unwrapping the object, stitching the seams, then running unfold on them.

What you need to do is this:

1) Unwrap your object
2) Create a "UV Snapshot" from the UV editor
3) Load that snapshot into Photoshop, and paint your texture onto it.
4) Load the painted texture into Maya on a material
5) Assign that material to an object.
*) Whenever you update your texture, open the texture's file node, and click reload. Or you can download this tool: https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/do...fresh-textures

It's also a bad idea to load large psd's into Maya, as they take up an incredible amount of memory. It's best to save a copy of the file as a jpg or tga, each time you make an edit, and let Maya load that.

Hope this helps.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 8 07-06-2010 , 07:28 AM

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You can always set photoshop (or other graphical apps) in the preferences. Goto Window -> Settings/Preferences and then select Applications (at the bottom) you can then set up maya to open PSD files of "other images",

I like to use tif's I can then paint the UV's in PS apply it to a material that is applied to the model then paint and reload as next said. tif's allow you to use layers, when your working and update nicely.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 9 07-06-2010 , 08:29 AM

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Originally posted by NextDesign
[B]I personally despise pelt mapping applications. They always seem slower than just automatically unwrapping the object, stitching the seams, then running unfold on them.

Originally Posted by

I think you never actually gave it a (good)try.

I agree pelting may be bad, but it is only for non-organic models.But for organic pelting is undoubtedly far far better then automatic of whatever method you use.

Moreover, have you ever tried "UV Layout" from Headus?
I think you might change your mind after using that.

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# 10 08-06-2010 , 12:37 AM

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Originally posted by iamcreasy
I think you never actually gave it a (good)try.

I agree pelting may be bad, but it is only for non-organic models.But for organic pelting is undoubtedly far far better then automatic of whatever method you use.

Moreover, have you ever tried "UV Layout" from Headus?
I think you might change your mind after using that.

Originally Posted by

Hi creasy. I spent 4 months uving every day for many productions. I have used it. And if you look, I said "In my opinion"; so I have given it a "good" try.

I just don't like using pelt mapping. It takes me about 10 minutes to unwrap a head manually, and a bit more for pelt mapping, as I have to export the file, import, uv, export, import. I just like the control I get over the normal way than with pelt mapping. I also find that doing it by hand makes the uv's less odd looking, and makes it easier to paint on.

I would also stay away from tifs. In all the studios I've been it, it is an absolute no-no to use tif's, as it is a container format; there is no real specification for them; which means that every application may have a different way of handling them; which makes it a bit scary for us who use many different applications. Transfer to Max in particular. Targa's are usually a better bet in terms of compatibility between applications.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 11 08-06-2010 , 04:43 AM

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I just don't like using pelt mapping. It takes me about 10 minutes to unwrap a head manually, and a bit more for pelt mapping, as I have to export the file, import, uv, export, import. I just like the control I get over the normal way than with pelt mapping. I also find that doing it by hand makes the uv's less odd looking, and makes it easier to paint on.

Originally Posted by

It's true that I dont have any production experience and haven't tried "very" hard to master Mays's default UV techniques.But ,when I started UVing I eventually felt that Maya dont give me enough flexibility or adequate smart tool for robust uving...unless, you make yourself used to with those default ones.

Moreover, I always tend to unwrap an organic mode as one piece.I dont know if it is good or bad, but it makes my life a lot easier.It is like un-skinning an animal after slaughter.Though, again I would admit I dont know the production standard and I am not-so-good at texturing.Could you please let me know something about it.

As for the tool quality, I have found many people who complain about the uv tools of maya, only.They say they lack stuff and point out something more simple for uving. Technically speaking, without ABF++, LSCM algorithm.... seriously makes me feel like an person trying to learn swimming in a stormy ocean.

Last edited by iamcreasy; 08-06-2010 at 08:49 AM.

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# 12 09-06-2010 , 05:25 AM

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Hi Creasy. Yes it is hard to get around it, and I didn't really start using them intensely until I started production. That's when you just got to bite the bullet, and just do it. Once you get comfortable with the layout, it's actually quite intuitive. As I said, I can usually unwrap a whole character with 40 minutes or so (Even on raw zBrush models). Production doesn't really allow you to say "well, let's try it this way.." (In regards to pelt mapping) If you know what I mean.

About the once piece layout... I usually split my textures into two pieces for a character. One for the head, the eyes, mouth, ears, etc; and one for the body, feet, hands, etc. This is mainly because a lot of the focus is on the head of a character, not on the body. This allows me to create a higher resolution texture map for the head; and a lower for the body. For example, I usually have an 8k texture map for the head, and an 8k texture on the body. If you unwrap it in one piece, not only is stretching usually higher, but there is a lot of wasted space in the uvs. For example, if you have one 16k texture for the entire character laid out in one uv. Say the head takes up a generous 10% of the texture. That means that the area being covered by the head is only ~820 pixels squared. Meanwhile, there are huge amounts of space in the texture being wasted in negative space. There really is no "standard" as every character, and production, have different requirements; but these are the general rules I follow.

As for the tool quality, I have found many people who complain about the uv tools of maya, only.They say they lack stuff and point out something more simple for uving. Technically speaking, without ABF++, LSCM algorithm.... seriously makes me feel like an person trying to learn swimming in a stormy ocean.

The only people that I have really run into about the uv tools being bad in Maya, are the people that haven't really gotten around to playing around with, and learning them; or people that expect it to be "automatic". UVing isn't an "automatic" process. In a way, it's an art form as well.

Hope this helps you out mate.

-J

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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maya texturing - whole process greatly confusing

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