Grads in Games Search for a star. Page 5: Uvs in Maya.

Rope UV

When UV mapping, like I said I wanted to ensure that the pattern matches and curls even if in the shape that it is in. This is what I had in mind, see figure 1. Though as you can see with the chequered pattern, I need to edit it further to make sure the texture wont stretch.

I can use this tool to make it work faster. This will make the texture easy to make- since it is just a line with a pattern on it. I can make the material in substance painter. Then try to make the pattern in SP also, though I think it might be faster for me to simply add it in PSD. I can be more accurate and versatile then. All I have to do it make the pattern shape, add a mask around the selected area and apply an appropriate blending mode. Then when the pattern mixes with the texture maps. I gave it from Substance painter, like dirt and dust, with a reflective plastic material, that will be perfect. I can add a slight opacity in SP also.

I applied an image UV checker to the tape mesh to check if my method worked. There were a few areas that still needed work.

See figure 3, the others are minor details, but the circle with the exclamation mark next to it is the one I must fix for sure. This is the result of some tweaking, I will leave it like this.

I had to strongly resist fixing the top mesh width. Since I want the texture to squash, with the baked details I must leave it the same width as the rest of the mesh.

Spotlight Uvs

To make the Uvs, I either transferred the UV maps between model duplicates or duplicated the model and repositioned it in place. Both methods were very quick.

Stair Uvs

Branch mesh light Uvs

I will be adding a material onto this object in Unreal. Therefore, all I need for this model is the UV map. I will not add it onto the main branch UV map with I will make a Substance texture from there. Since I will add the mesh light material in Unreal, there Is no need to have the maps together. All I need from that asset is a UV map to generate the material and light map in Unreal.

Twist mesh light Uvs

Ring Mirror Uvs

Broken area Uvs

Thinking about how I should make the Uvs to fit the wood grin direction, I know that I will need to think about which orientation the UV shells are. From here on, I will make sure to create the Uvs as though I am preparing for wood grain that angles from top to bottom, instead of side to side. Like this:

On the spindle, I had a little trouble figuring out what to do with this UV shell in terms of following the grain.

For the spindles I stacked the Uvs so that I could save space on the UV map, and since they can all have the same texture.

After looking at the size of the UV group in that asset, I decided to not stack the spindles after all. It would be better to have the vaired detail and there is enough space on the map. Now I am just resizein them to fit with the correct scale.

The only problem is that I want the not highlighted Uvs in the image above to stay as they are more or less. And the selected items to fill in the gaps. Not sure how to do that. But if I were to produce the same texel density throughout and then press the automatic layout key, then I get this result:

I do not want my Uvs to be arranged or sized like this with so much space on the map that could be used. I will just have to rearrange the smaller pieces by hand/ in small groups. I opted for space efficiency with this result:

Of course moving the Uvs around manually takes a long time (about 10-20 mins) but I am happy with the result. Though I wont use the same method for the other assets. I will instead select all of the small UV shells, press layout and then put them in a corner and place the larger assets around them. On another note, the largest Uv in the image, the landing platform is incorrect. It should be straight to that the wood grains will be the correct direction, so I still need to tweak it. Like so:

Supporting Beams Uvs

I debated with myself on the pros and cons of certain methods to Uving the support beams, as well as which objects I should merge into one asset. I had one main question

What does one ‘asset’ consist of?

• All of the beams on both sides.
• Only beams on one side.
• Only single models (that fit together) that can be duplicated into position. This way I would stack the Uvs of duplicated assets, saving resolution in the UV maps. However, there would be no variety between the textures in the repeated assets. And I could not add custom details. Then when I plug in my texture maps into Maya, all of the objects that I have already arranged into place would have that texture applied. This seems like the best option though it is not as quick as doing them all at once.

I chose the quick method considering my time constraints. Though I wont add much extra detail.

To my surprise and glee, I was able to finish the Uving very quickly with the use of these tools: orient shell, layout, unwrap and 3d cut and sew tool. Also, all of the uv shells fit together well, almost being full size. So, I do not think that doing the stacking method would have made too much of a difference.

Twist Uv

As I mentioned before, I am now trying to make layout squares with the smallest UVs in a collection. This time, to fit, I made three separate layout tool layouts. Like this:

Landing Uv

This asset is the ordinary landing, the one that is not broken. Although it is similar to the broken asset, it requires a different UV.

Then fit them in the space available. I have checked and the texel density, according to the largest uv is much lower than the setting that the small UVs have now. There fore, the method I use works well. It was also very fast. Like figure 26.

Door Uv

I forgot that the door knob needs to be on the door texture set, therefore, my layout work here is useless. At least the uv shells for the door knob are ready.

Stair Uv

I am wondering if t is too packed. But I will stick to this set up for now.

Wall Uv

End railing Uv

Bench Uv

I UVed the bench asset like this since I thought it would be more appropriate and the side faces wouldn’t be stretched too much.

Branch Uv

My main area for improvement is definitely the optimisation of my low poly models. I want to lean how to better close topology edge loops so that the poly count lowers.

Also in retrospective, the caution tape is sculpted more light fabric than tape.