UV Mapping still a black book!

# 1 25-01-2012 , 05:23 PM

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All,
I was watching tons of video tutorials regarding UV Mapping in Maya. 98% of these trainings shows how to texture a cigarette box or a corn flakes box! So boring.

Want to see par example a tutorial concerning texturing of a tire. I want to have the tread textured and not modeled as well as the sidewall of the tire. No plan how to do!

This is the tread I want to have on the tire as well as the sidewall:

Is there some good tutorials explaining how to unwrap such a model and texture it?

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# 2 25-01-2012 , 05:35 PM

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You have done it that is how you would texture it of course the tread will be longer, give it a try...........dave

Edit:I have done it simple but your UVs would look some thing like this, auto map and a little sewing

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Last edited by daverave; 25-01-2012 at 05:44 PM.

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# 3 25-01-2012 , 11:35 PM

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Look at some tutorials on how to UV map organic models. When you do that you will get a firm understanding on the tools, and how to deal with difficult situations. Good Luck. I also HATE UV's

I have made maybe 20-30 fully cool detailed organic models in my career. If there has not been such a thing as laying out UV's i would have made maybe around 200-300!

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# 4 26-01-2012 , 10:23 AM

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1- automatic mapping
2- move and sew
3- layout
4- PROFIT !!!

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# 5 26-01-2012 , 09:12 PM

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Hi all,

many thanks for all your quick replies! Sounds really easy out of your pros mouth user added image

Mine UV map is completely weird and it will takes hours to bring them to a proper UV map!

I'm wondering how people are texturing such complex models?

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# 6 26-01-2012 , 09:46 PM

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Post a wire shot of your model and UVs..............dave

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# 7 26-01-2012 , 10:10 PM

Acid44

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Just takes some splitting and lining up to get it to work. the main thing you need to do is mess about with the settings for the cylindrical mapping for tyres, which can be a pain because it isn't exactly the most straight forward thing, but once you play around a bit you'll find what you need

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# 8 31-01-2012 , 05:45 PM

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Hi daverave,

Post a wire shot of your model and UVs..............dave

Originally Posted by daverave

Below you will find the screenshots of the respective mappings as well as the Maya file. I think this is one of the reason why I hate Maya!!
I have chosen to use a tread texture as I have to keep the poly's really low due to the game engine!

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Name: cylinmspping.jpg
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FlotationPro.zip (176.7 KB, 220 views)

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# 9 31-01-2012 , 05:48 PM

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Acid44,

Just takes some splitting and lining up to get it to work. the main thing you need to do is mess about with the settings for the cylindrical mapping for tyres, which can be a pain because it isn't exactly the most straight forward thing, but once you play around a bit you'll find what you need

Originally Posted by Acid44

It seems so easy when you guy's are doing UV mapping. For me as noobs it's still a big, big black book. I'm not sure if I will learn this techniques ever.

I remember Albert Einstein who said: Imagination is more important as knowledge, while knowledge is limited.
I have a lot of imagination but here I suppose that knowledge would be better :-(

Thanks a lot for your hints given in your last thread.

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# 10 31-01-2012 , 06:07 PM

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The trouble you are having is you tried to model the tyre (created error in mesh) and now you are trying to texture it, you just need to start again. Create a poly pipe then put a bevel around the edge then auto map, you should have less polys to UV..........dave

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# 11 31-01-2012 , 07:25 PM

Acid44

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Acid44,

It seems so easy when you guy's are doing UV mapping. For me as noobs it's still a big, big black book. I'm not sure if I will learn this techniques ever.

I remember Albert Einstein who said: Imagination is more important as knowledge, while knowledge is limited.
I have a lot of imagination but here I suppose that knowledge would be better :-(

Thanks a lot for your hints given in your last thread.

Originally Posted by lecra

I've only UV'd one thing before this, and probably will never UV anything again. It really isn't hard to get a basic grip of, you've just got to be persistent and mess about with a lot of the different tools

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# 12 31-01-2012 , 10:12 PM

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I'm no UV pro, but I think 99% of the time it's just: cut, move and sew, and unfold. I'm sure there's a few other helpful ones, but you can get away with those to start. And making sure your geo is good to start with user added image

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# 13 01-02-2012 , 12:13 AM

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If you are looking to do it properly....forget automapping....its crap....you never get what you want.

Use Mayas planar mapping for the sidewalls, and cylindrical mapping tools for the tread. Doing it manually is far more comprehensive and you get the result you need/want. As far as plugins/scripts go try roadkill or even auto UV unwrap in Bonus Tools. With either of these its a case of selecting the edges you want to cut...run the script....then once its cut simply unfold and stitch where needed. Theres no magic or shortcut if you wanna do it properly. Its that simple, and you will need patience...the more polys you have the more patience you'll need and a good set of headphones and music...always a winner!! But read the help, thats why its there. Try it on a different objects to start with until you get the hang of it.

To put it into perspective here, Im currently working on a model at work....it has over 4000 objects to UV at the moment and around 6million polys overall. Some uvs are transferable but mainly its all separate individual parts. Although I generally like Uving models it does have its days.....this little project is a 5 minute job when you compare it to what Im up to....all Im using is the planar projection and bonustools uv unwrapper along with cut and stitch/move uvs

J

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# 14 01-02-2012 , 04:49 PM

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Guy's,

Thank you for your words! I'm coming from another stream (Sketchup) and there was really simple. I know, SU is not comparable with Maya! But UV mapping is really a dark edge in my Maya knowledge. Everything that I start in Maya is reaching the end when it's come to mapping textures!

Today I started again with the tire and it seems not bad except the fact that the tread mapping looks not real as the texture is to stretched. But with this piece of texture I have it seems not possible to texture the tread. That is also one of my problems: how big must be a texture in order to look realistic after have textured the object?
There are a lot of tire pictures on the internet but not as frontal shot. Is there a possibility to take one and then distort it as long as the picture is straight?

Here the result of my try: not really god....

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# 15 11-02-2012 , 12:19 PM

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It's not a matter of how big to be realilstic, it depends on your render desired size AND visual requirements.
If you want photorealistic results, don't paint your textures only use photographic bases.

Also be carefull you have a couple of unsewn edges on the border of the tread in your model. It will distort the texture if you smooth the object..
Aaaand you have a row of vertices with no edges connection near the center of the tire.

Last edited by yoruneko; 11-02-2012 at 12:22 PM.

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UV Mapping still a black book!

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