MAYA UV unwrapping thread (HOW TO)

[3DTexturizer]

OK, you asked for it. This is the semi complex model I am going to teach you to unwrap. Looks can be decieving, Ive already taken a peek at the default unwrap, and its not looking too bad. Im going to do this like so:
I am going to be straight shooting tonight, Im going to work this until I get too tired, like 4-5 hours...
As I work Im going to add a screen to this particular post, so it will be updated every so often.
And begin.

[3DTexturizer]

Select your model, go to Edit polys>Texture>Automatic mapping, click the little BOX next to it.
This opens the Unwrap dialog box. See were already having fun!
My model is going to theoretically be in the players face a lot, so I want a nice rezolution size. Im going to use 1024x1024. I would love to use 2048x2048, gut I might as well just dream. :p
Anyway, the only things you really need to really adjust is:
1. The document size
2. The location of the save file
3. If you have a really hairy unwrap you can just redo it and try the fewer
pieces or less distortion at the top of the dialog box.

Click on apply, your model turns orange and you have now unwrapped the model. But how do I see it you ask? Go to Window>UV Texture Editor and click it.
Look for next post.
This is what I see:

[3DTexturizer]

Ok, so scale the texture editor window so it fills one side of your viewport, and move the model so you can see it in the other half of your display. Turn your model to wireframe or shaded, you will have to decide which view for yourself.
Right click in the tex. editor and select uv's. Now when you marquee select, or shift select, you have control over how the Uvs are handled. When selected in the tex. editor, will show green on the model as well. This is how you figure out whats what.
With my model I could pretty much determine most of the parts where what.
Now if your model has different parts I find using that monstrous space around the grid to sort the pieces into piles.
Look for next post.
After sorting:

[3DTexturizer]

Now is where the real fun starts.
Well the parts are sorted, now all you have to do is figure outwhich ones connect to which. Select the UV's in one window, see where they show in the other. If you select where two meet on the model, you will then see which two pieces, go together, and in what direction, in the tex.editor. Its a process that is tedious, dont loose patience.
Hint: All of the quick mover keys(q,w,e,r) work in the tex. editor window on selected uv's.
Next I suggest you become very familiar with the controls on the widow top, they will become your new best friend.
Look for next post.

[3DTexturizer]

Some things to think about while working on layouts of uv's:
1. Can I stack UV's. Sometimes you have parts that will only be seen one side at a time, thus you could say make a crate that has 6 sides and only 3 texture sufaces on the texture. This is an important decision because, you could just stack all of the UV's on top of the other line them up and rescale the "single" box
side to the edge and only have to make 1 side instead of all 6.
Im going to do this with my model, beacause noone will ever see both sides at once.
2. What parts of the model are most important? Is there parts of the model with really no detail ? Is There a part of the model that has to be crisp and clear?
Scale is important to keep track of at this point. Dont stretch stuff too far in only one direction, or it will start to "streak" or distort.
On this model I want to make sure the that the Body (red colored) doesnt get
stretched.

[3DTexturizer]

Its coming along, I have figured out what all the shapes correspond to and lined up some things.
Look for next post.

[3DTexturizer]

So just using these few controls and patience, voila! You now have a UV set that is organized and ready to export.
Select the model in object mode, and in the tex. editor, go to
Polygons>UV Snapshot, and click it.
A dialog box pops up and now:
Set the destination folder
Enter the size you want the snapshot taken in
Make sure the image format is .jpg
And click OK

Your texture is the next step...
Let me know if you want to learn that too. ;)

[3DTexturizer]

By the way, notice that since I stacked a lot of the items, it looks like I have lots of extra room. I do to a degree, but unless I want to rotate the guns body
to a 45 degree angle and have it go from corner to corner, Im not really wasting any space. In other words, I cant really enlarge the biggest part of my model, and I want to keep the scale correct, its just fine this way.

[Borat]

nice, very nice!
Now i just gotta learn to model properly!

[Inferny]

And now, the needless example of a UV map of my really crappy spacecraft :D
SUFFER

[sandorski]

You can simplify the process greatly by Planar Mapping areas you want joined together.

[King Mango]

Yeah that's how I do it. I select areas that I want to be one material or painted together w/o seams and then I use the most similar preset mapping. Then I move them as I select them. Still great tute 3d. I never tried fooling with those eight buttons before. I will now.
Also a quick note, if you are using the PLE and the UnEditor exporter plugin, your UVs will be upside down once in UED. All you need to do is make a tex rotator for your skin and rotate the Yaw by 32768 and all will be fine.

[EDIT]An idea that just occured to me is to select all your UVs before final export and rotate them before using the exporter. May work.

[G-BUS]

I for one would be quite interested in seeing how you go about the texturing of your weapon.

[krazy_darcy]

would this work with both maya ple 5 and a human body model?

[3DTexturizer]

would this work with both maya ple 5 and a human body model?

Found this on another forum:

Maya Personal Learning Edition includes most of the functionality of Maya Complete with the following principle differences:

Performance
Maya Personal Learning Edition is limited to using a single CPU. The commercial version of Maya takes advantage of multiple CPUs, resulting in faster performance in areas such as software rendering, IPR and Paint Effects.
Watermark
A watermark text image appears across all rendered images and in some Maya Personal Learning Edition panels. The watermark does not appear when working in wireframe mode.
Rendering and Image Output
You cannot render using mental ray.
You cannot render using the vector renderer.
You cannot output 16-bit rendered image formats.
Camera's film fit offset and film offset are limited to 0.
Rendering is limited to a single CPU.
Images from the following tools have been limited to 1024x768:

Software rendering output in Render View and batch mode
Hardware rendering output in Render View and batch mode
Hardware render buffer
Paint Effects canvas mode and scene mode
UV snapshot in UV texture Editor
3D Paint Tool
Mac OS X: The command line rendering utility has been renamed from "Render" to "Render5PLE" to avoid conflict with the commercial version of Maya if it is also installed on the same machine.
File Format and Data Input/Output
You cannot write standard Maya software files (.ma, .mb); only the Maya Personal Learning Edition file format (.mp) can be saved; however, you can import standard Maya software files.
Particle disk caching is not supported.
Text dump from the Blind Data Editor window is not supported
Exporting skin weight maps and character maps is not supported.
API and Plug-ins
The API developer's kit is not included with Maya Personal Learning Edition.
It is not possible to load plug-ins from the commercial version of Maya or third party plug-ins.
MEL
The scriptEditor - writeHistory option is not available
The following MEL commands are not available: system, fopen, popen, fwrite, fprint and cmdpipe.
The script editor output section is limited to 75 lines of output.
The script editor > Save Selected menu item has been removed.
User Interface
The background color's value (in HSV space) of interactive window is limited to [0.3,0.9].

[2tall]

Yeah that's how I do it. I select areas that I want to be one material or painted together w/o seams and then I use the most similar preset mapping. Then I move them as I select them. Still great tute 3d. I never tried fooling with those eight buttons before. I will now.
Also a quick note, if you are using the PLE and the UnEditor exporter plugin, your UVs will be upside down once in UED. All you need to do is make a tex rotator for your skin and rotate the Yaw by 32768 and all will be fine.

[EDIT]An idea that just occured to me is to select all your UVs before final export and rotate them before using the exporter. May work.

What do you mean by tex rotator? Im just getting started in the maya PLE and my mapped texture is perfect in maya but all skewed in UED.

[saka]

In ued open the texture browser.
Create a new material by selecting File > new
For material class, select Tex Rotator.


ps.
It's prolly a hell of a lot easier to mirror the texture in PS or another kind of paint program.

[sandorski]

What do you mean by tex rotator? Im just getting started in the maya PLE and my mapped texture is perfect in maya but all skewed in UED.

It's simpler to just Vertically flip the Texture in Photoshop, that basically just turns it upside down. That could also be done in Maya by flipping the UVs Vertically.

[2tall]

Thanks for the replies. Seems the latest version of maya doesnt have this issue from what I have run across. Anyone have any luck with vertex painting in maya PLE?