BA3: Materials & Rendering Fundamentals

A Brief UV Mapping Tutorial

Following our previous tutorial on UV mapping basics, we were given a live demo/give it a go yourself tutorial on  very basic UV mapping. I managed to keep up with main sections and also take notes and screenshots. However, they are a little too much on the basic side for  me to properly follow up so I will try my hardest to explain.

Here I have cut up the UV shell by selected the “cut UV shell” tool which is highlighted in the top left of the UV map area. I was then able to select edges and use the “scissor” tool to literally cut them up and move them around like I would a normal shape in Maya. Shown above is the cut up shell and moved around pieces of the shell. 

 

By selecting edges you can then select particular edges, on the UV map screen you will notice that is selects the joining edge as well so you are then able to select the “move & sew” tool to literally stitch them back together. 

 

(LOOK FOR UV GRID so you can open it as a file and it will help you for the size and proportion on a spherical object)

If anything sits on top of itself or can be pushed apart (think of the top of the sphere where you could pull the sections apart) you can select the whole shape and use the polygon drop down menu on the UV page and select the “merge UV’s” (like merge vertex etc.) and this will make it one shape and easier to move. 

 

If you have a single texture shared across multiple objects just make sure they don’t overlap on the UV map. 

 

Here we were looking at wrapping a texture successfully around a spherical object. The process was as follows: 

 

Here you can see I have selected only the top of the sphere (the area where the texture screws up and distorts/needs sorting out), I then make this areas massive on the UV map so I can place it correctly so that the cheque pattern is equal and looks right. 

 

Select flipped UV so that shape turns blue so you know it is the correct way round/facing the right way. 

Select faces > make sure shell move tool is OFF > then select the area.

 

When you want to stitch, move, rotate etc you must have the shell tool ON but if you want to select the edges or faces it must be turned OFF.  The best thing to do is move your UV map around so that it fits successfully onto the 3D shape AND the UV grid. 

 

To make the chequered pattern match up as close as possible I used the rotate and resize tools (on the main Maya page, near the actual shape on the far left) and moved the shape around over the chequered pattern on the UV map side as well as re sizing the object so it looked like it fitted nicely over the sphere. I appreciate it doesn’t perfectly match up in terms of size and shape but it’s the best I could do in the live demo tutorial whilst taking notes and keeping up!