Texturing a building

# 1 07-11-2011 , 10:42 PM

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Hi all,

I'm new to Maya and I have terrific problems texturing the building that I have modeled for hours (see attachments). I tried many techniques, assigning textures with lambert shader, planar mapping and creating UV's. Texturing, UV's, mapping! This is completely a dark book for me. I watched tons of video tutorials, read tons of written tutorial but all are handling just only how to texture a cube or a sphere but not how to texture complexe buildings. The other one I found they were not explaining step by step how and what kind of texturing I should apply.
The second attachments describe briefly what I want to do.

Somebody that can point me to the right direction? Or maybe recording a short video tutorial? I could also send the Maya file if somebody want to try first.

At the moment I'm completely lost and not motivated anymore: I don't want to build only gray buildings! user added image

Due to a game restriction I can only use lambert or phong shaders.

It would be great if somebody can point me in the right direction or give me some good hints. Would be very appreciated user added image

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers, Lecra

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# 2 07-11-2011 , 11:36 PM

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The scene file would be nice, really can't tell much about the scene from those pics. I think it would help if you had a short video showing how you went about doing it. It's all about making the judgement call on what type of projections to use for any given situation and hopefully you develop an efficient workflow.

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# 3 08-11-2011 , 12:16 PM

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Lecra...there are so many parts to any building so this wont be easy. What you can do is assign a new lambert and change the colour...in the attributes editor. Dont forget to hit the '6' key to see textures you may have applied...if you post the file Genny will have a look by the sounds of it.

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 4 08-11-2011 , 08:24 PM

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Hi Genny & Bullet,

Many thanks for your quick reply.

I'm not sure if I have fulfilled your requirements Genny in regards of efficient workflow. As I said, I'm new with Maya and with any 3D software. My expectation is, and was never to be a specialist between a few months and I'm learning every day some new techniques or how to build somethings in another manner has XY described etc. I'm sure that I have not followed all the guidelines but as I mentioned: I'm willing to learn new techniques and I'm spending a lot of my precious time for that.

Attached you will find the Maya file. Feel free to give me open and honestly feedback if you think i made completely rubbish and I should start again. No problem with that from my side.

Many thanks to you in spending your precious time going over my model and guiding me to the right direction. Much appreciated guy's!

BTW, this model is just for fun and for learning purposes, but the expectations are still there to be more and more confident within Maya and spread some models into the game community.

KR, Lecra

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Gemeindehaus1.zip (107.3 KB, 322 views)

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# 5 12-11-2011 , 01:20 PM

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Sorry it took me this long, I looked at the scene and I noticed there was some geometry issues. There are a a lot of loose vertices and some weirdness in the foundation which will make your life harder than it needs to be. I have a short vid I'll upload later. In the mean time check out the screenshots for those verts I was talking about.

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# 6 12-11-2011 , 11:25 PM

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Thanks Gen, I havent had tiime to look. I see they were all default lambert too....UVing this model shouldnt be difficult or texturing, I dont have the time however as Im in a remote locale flat out working...so all the help from you Gen...if I can I will add as well.

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 7 14-11-2011 , 10:25 PM

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Genny,

Many thanks for your reply! I was not aware that my model was so "shitty" :-( I haven't realized it but I will go over the model with your images and try to understand why this happened trying to correct all the issues you have complained about.

Is there a tool or trick that you can maybe reveal how to see these issues at the end of the modeling process?

Genny, I know, what I asked for in my first mail takes a lot of time! It would be much appreciated if you can provide a tut video, but if this takes to much time, I would understand if you would say: hey guy stop, I have no time for that! No problem for me.
BTW Genny, the texture could be also a projection of a picture taken from a house like in many textures databases. I agree, a real texture looks much better...

Bullet: that's true that all material I used are lamberts. If you remember my first mail, I wrote that the game engine accept only textures made with lambert or phong.

Many thanks to you both for the answer.

Rg, Lecra

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# 8 14-11-2011 , 10:33 PM

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your model is ok mate it aint shitty...just needs a clean man...all models do eventually. What I meant was that you have only 'one' lambert assigned to all sections of the model. You should have a lambert assigned for each texture...you didnt appear to have that...unless I have missed something mate? If I get time today I will try and do a quick vid on what I mean, unless you understand what I mean?

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 9 18-11-2011 , 01:40 AM

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I wouldn't say the models are "shitty", those issues will occur less and less once you get settled in, so yeah you're going to get bitten in the arse a few times until you start keeping an eye out for certain things.

Oh yeah, Lecra check your pms.

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# 10 18-11-2011 , 08:09 AM

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Genny,

I wouldn't say the models are "shitty", those issues will occur less and less once you get settled in, so yeah you're going to get bitten in the arse a few times until you start keeping an eye out for certain things.

Oh yeah, Lecra check your pms.

Originally Posted by GecT

Yeah, what should I say: I see that I have a long, long way in front of me user added image

I was aware about that but now I think now it is much more clear.

I want to thank you so much for your video tutorial you made for my model explaining me all the mistakes I made as well as explaining how to UV map this kind of models! This is much appreciated Genny and believe me, with this I learned really a lot. I can't believe that there is no one usable tutorial (written or digitized) about texturing this kind of models.

In a few words Genny: your video tutorial was really the "hammer". Thank you, thank you thousand times for your effort.
In the next couple of weeks (or months user added image

) I will be busy in applying this kind of techniques and 'move & sew' all the stuff. I see that I have to win UV editor as my best friend user added image

.

Many many thanks again Genny.

Lecra

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# 11 18-11-2011 , 02:11 PM

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Glad I could help. user added image

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# 12 19-11-2011 , 09:03 PM

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I avoid things like this by orienting my first object to the world, and then every other object is oriented to the first object locally. This helps me avoid gaps between geometry pretty well.

Also, the Point to Point snap function is a lifesaver.

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# 13 20-11-2011 , 01:01 AM

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Cnotey, that is good advice...however with my too long experience in Surveying...nothing is normal anymore LOL. With buildings now EVERYTHING is not related to anything else LOL...almost thrown at the dartboard placement if you get what I mean. Without my computer and GPS.....to map the stuff these days would take me days instead of hours.

Onya Gen you little pearl you

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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Texturing a building

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