Maya Introductory UV mapping -Week 4

Texturing in Maya with UV maps is a useful topic because currently we are discussing texturing with lamberts and other textures in Mel Scripting. Knowing how to create a UV map manually will facilitate my knowledge of how to script UV maps. Below is the tutorial I watched:

UV mapping has a few essential ingredients that should be included when texturing an object in Maya.

The fundamental steps of UV Mapping is first to open the UV Texture Editor and Hypershade windows. UV maps are layed out in 2D space and represented within Maya as 2D dimensional faces that can undergo several transformations such as rotation, scaling, and directional movement. The vertices of the UV map faces can be moved to cover a specific part of the texture, which can be accessed from right clicking and selecting UVs. Textures can only be moved from within the UV Texture Editor, not the 3D environment of the box. To transform the maps more sufficiently, a feature called Shade UVs under the Image menu in the UV Texture Editor can tint the maps so they are highlighted against the texture.

The Hypershade window is useful to organize the textures before they are mapped to the surface of the model. Exploration of the different textures is needed for my understanding of UV mapping, but from this tutorial I only learned simple texture creation. A lambert texture can be linked to a file derived from one's computer or hard drive. Then the scroll button must be held down to transport the UV map onto the object, which in this example was a box. Then, pressing the # 6 key on the keyboard allows the texture to be displayed on the object in the 3D environment.

If the option to Create UVs Based on Camera  is selected under the Polygon and Create UVs menu tabs, maps will be directed in the angle of how the camera is pointed at the object. Originally, the UV maps are displayed as connected to one another. But the Separate the Selected UVs button gives one the power to transform the maps individually to get the best quality look for the object. The edges of maps can be sewn together, as it is called by selecting the Sew UVs  Button within the UV Texture editor window. To transfer the UV texture into Photoshop, one has to save a UV Snapshot of it to a specific location. It can then be placed back into Maya later on and readjusted.

Every program has simple steps to follow when using it to do anything. Programming is structured in the same way. Once one realizes there is a specific process to creating these works of art, the process becomes inherently easier to understand and execute.