Texturing problem
 

I have never been quite able to understand how to paint the wire frams of a model exported to a paint program.

When I make a UV snapshot of my model's wireframe and bring it up in a external paint program, I am confused as to how I am supposed to paint it. Do I paint over or under the wire frame? When I paint over it and import the textor into maya over my model, all I get is this. There are no tutorials on this specific part of the texturing process that I can find.

I am a total newbe at texturing of this kind by the way.

I'm a complete newbie myself, so let me share what I have learned:

The trick here is not to export the wireframe of your model, but to export a UV coordinate map of your model. A UV coordinate map is a 2D representation of your 3D model. This permits a 2D texture to be mapped onto a 3D model.

In Maya you create this map by projecting your model into a UV space. Although complex sounding, it's quite simple. Once in the 2D UV space, you can then export the UV map to photoshop or some other editor where you can then paint it. Once it has been exported back, it is then sorta "unprojected" back onto your model.

As the UV mapping tutorial on this site never received it's part 2, I hope the moderators will permit me to say there's a good introductory tutorial on this in the Maya Rendering section of Digital Tutors. I wont go as far as to post a link :)

I hope that helps.

well I will assume you have your UV's already mapped out..
in the texture editor pain, on its menus. you....Polygons > UV Snapshot. Thin you pick your options and it will save the file of your UV wire in a 2d bmp or tiff. open that with photoshop. edit.. I go through a process where I pull off just the wire info, leave the back ground. That way I have a wire that I can pain over or under, how ever works best.. when I save the texture.. I make sure to tern off the layer that has the wire. and save in BMP.
Bring up your UV mapped object in the attribute editor, thin your shader.. like lambertSomething. click on the box right next to the color. that will bring up a list.. chose the filetexture. when that comes up tell it where your texture file it.. it loads .. press 6 or 7 so you can see it if you want.. and it should render fine for you..

hope this helps.. thats my workflow.. hope I'm not daft and missing what your really asking.

Yes, my UV's for the model have allready been mapped out. Im just doing a poly primitive model because it maps out easliy, and I don't have to arrange the UV's. The problem is, after I have the UV's snap shotted, and I have them brought up in a painter program ready to be painted, do I paint in layer above or below the UV's , or is it something else? Im not doing a bump, specular, or diffuse map for this model, im just doing a color map.

Another question is where are the move and scale tools for the UV's in my UV texture editor? I cant seem to find the tools to move them or scale them. I am using Maya version 4.5 unlimited.

the UV snapshot is purely a guide. When you go to save your texture, hide the UV snapshot layer as you don't want a bunch of lines all over your model (usually, anyway).

rather you paint over or under them it probly dosn't matter.. what program are you painting in ? you might should try to paint over if you are unsure how to make sure the right layer gets saved as the BMP. well anyway.. when you save the texture out of your paint program make sure the wire is not visable anymore and save with out layers or alfa in a BMP..

in your UV texture editer, over the UV's ,right mouse button press and hold, drag over to UV's. after that is selected .. when you try to select whare the vertixis should be , the UV points will be there.. in green.. selecting the points just like you would vertixs.. you just use your move,scale, and rotait tools like normal with it..
Hope that helps.

Quote:
"When you go to save your texture, hide the UV snapshot layer as you don't want a bunch of lines all over your model".

So your saying I don't paint diectly onto the UV snapshot, but rather paint on a layer and save that layer separately, and use that layer for the model right? The picture I have in my topic starter is the result of painting directly onto the UV snapshot.


Quote:
"rather you paint over or under them it probly dosn't matter.. what program are you painting in ? you might should try to paint over if you are unsure how to make sure the right layer gets saved as the BMP. well anyway.. when you save the texture out of your paint program make sure the wire is not visable anymore and save with out layers or alfa in a BMP.."

I am using paint shop pro 7.

After hours of working with what Pony and Mike reffered to me, I finially figured out the texture process, for the most part ( thanks a bunch to the both of you !!). The only thing I am having problems with is the models shader. After I ployextrude I get these wierd unwanted shadows on the side of the model, reguardles if there is a texture.

Forgot to include pic for comments.

can we see a wire? I believe it probably has to do with polys that have more than 4 sides.

I don't know how make a screen capture of the wire frame. I cant seem to find the command anywhere on the user interface.

Just hit Print Scrn button on the keyboard and paste into Photoshop (or equivalent).

I pressed the print screen button on the keyboard but nothing happens that will allow me to paste into a paint program.

Need more info.

Don't bother explaining, I figured it out.

Anyway, here is the problem I'm having with the shadows, or dark shades that appear on the model through the texture when I polyextrude.

By the way, I created the model from the create polygon tool, and extruded to get my model.

yeah, I would suggest triangulating the model to get rid of the 20 sided polys.