UVs.....Umm...explain?
 

Hey all,

Sigh.....just when I thought I was getting somewhere with Maya, I now feel lost again. So, here I crawl with my tail between my legs and pleat for help, as usual.

1. I'm trying to texture my model, which I can sort of do as long as I'm only using one simple texture. I know that you can texture a single face of a polygon. However, when trying this, I get a corrupted mess of pixels. Due to my small experience of 3D programming, I'm pretty sure that this is a UV co-ordinate problem. I though it was simple....UVs start at (0,0) and are stretched to (1,1). That is all you need to know to code. However, since I'm pretty sure 3D packages have a different idea of what UVs are used for, can someone explain what UVs are in Maya and how I display my texture correctly on a face?

2. I have read the book "Learning Maya".....I'm trying to animate my model.....but it goes into MEL scripting for rotational pivots for correct movement without explaining how it works. Does anyone know where I can get a human-readable tutorial for a simple Maya walk cycle?

3. Am I utterly thick, or is animation and texturing *very* difficult? Have I picked the wrong package for doing this?

After all this frustration and about four months of hard work and confusion......behold my first (unfinished....see Q1) model. Textures are not aligned properly and I can't animate the damned thing yet.

http://www.tronsoftware.freewire.co....odelTexLow.jpg

Thanks for any help and relevant explanations, as per usual. I'd have given up on Maya now if it weren't for you guys. :)

Rage_Matrix

i dont pretend to know much, but to adjust your UV map, window>UV texture editor (i think) and you can remap your texture file in there

UVs are basically a way of telling which pixels of a 2d texture goes where on the 3d model. There's few good tutorials covering UVs at the VIP area here.

1. UVs in code and UVs in 3D programs are the same thing, just represented differently. UVs are texture coordinates on meshes. They are associated with poly vertices and NURBs control vertices. On a mesh, all UVs line up with the vertices. On a 2D plane, such as the UV Texture Editor, it is like a puzzle or a clothing pattern. It is an arbritrary 2D square surface that is "wrapped" around the entire mesh.

2. There is a basic stickman walk cycle tutorial in the VIP section. It is a good start. "Inspired 3D Character Animation" is also a good resource. It's a spendy book, but I think it's worth it.

3. Animation and texturing is relative easy in Maya compared to other programs. In general, though, then can be difficult to learn. Take one at a time and have patience.