Maya

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"Texturing a polygonal head model" by Chris Kniffen

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The following describes how I setup the UV's for my model in order to paint the textures.

Step 7:
Now it's time to use the Move and Sew command. Select the edges of your neck shell (which automatically selects the connected edges on the other shell) and use the Move and Sew command (Edit Polygons>Textures>Move and Sew)(this command can also be accessed from the UV Texture Editor's Polygon menu). Do the same with the top of the head's shell.


















You'll see that all 3 shells are now joined. But the UV's are pretty bunched up where you've sewn them together. This is a job for the Relax UV's command (next step).

Step 8
: You can use the Relax UV's command to space out selected UV's into a more neat layout. Just select the UV's in the problem area and use the relax UV's command.

NOTE: don't do this too much or you'll probably get stretching in the textures where you've relaxed the UV's too much!

 

ZBrush_Ancient_Warrior



Step 9:
When you're finished and happy with your unwrapped UV's, select the entire shell, and go to the Polygons>Layout UV's>options command in the UV Texture Editor. Change the settings to what I have in the picture on the right.

You want the Separate option off so that Maya lays out the UV's in 1 piece. Then the Layout option you want to select "Into Square" so that maya fits your selected UV's into one square unit. The Scale option you want to select Uniform so that Maya scales your selected UV shell uniformly to fit inside a 1 unit square.


Here is a screen shot of my finished UV's. Not perfect, but you get the idea...
Step 10: After your UV shell is layed out in a 1 unit square, select the model and go to the Polygons>UV Snapshot command in the UV Texture Editor. Change the path/filename to whatever you choose, set the XY size of the texture to be created, and the Color Value for the UV's, and image format. After you select OK, an image file is created with your UV's and an alpha channel in the image format you selected. You can now take that image into Photoshop (or image editing software of choice) and start to paint your texture. (next step).
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