Total beginner UV unwrapping/Mapping question

[spiritmouse]

Knowing and figuring out where you're going to put the seam ahead is important. Applying a checker board or color board texture of some sort would be helpful for you to know if there is any streching on the textures.
I usually start off with separating different parts (Max: use material ID; Maya: do projection in each parts and seperate them in uv texture editor), then focus on each part individually.

Here's how I start off generally, details would depend on what program you are using. Hope this helps~!

[PlanetaryWolf]

I don't even know how to do any of that......This is my first ever ever ever even looking at UV mapping and trying it.

[spiritmouse]

what program are your using?

[PlanetaryWolf]

Oh, I'm using Maya 7.

[spiritmouse]

Just an overview, UV map is basically a 2d representation of the 3d model you've. When laying out UV, you're grabbing the faces of the model and do a projection (usually use planar, cylindrical) on it and it will show up on the UV texture editor (Windows menu > UV Texture Editor). The best UV map has no overlapping UV faces and no streching on the model, so when you paint your texture with the UV layout later in photoshop or other programs, you can just paint it like a 2d canvas and apply on the 3d model.
For example, it would be simple if you're doing a dice, you would want to layout all 6 faces flatly on the UV like this:
......__
___| 1|_______
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
.,...| 6 |

so when you take this to make texture, you'll be just painting texture like a 2D canvas.
The red borders are the seams you've to watch out for and hide them in a less visible places, and also try to match them when you're texturing later.
When you're UV-ing something more organic like a human character, then it'll be more difficult to make every single faces not scretching. You'll at least try to make the most noticable part (e.g. front view of face) of the model not scretching or no seams.
You can also apply a lambert shader on the model, with a 2d texture of checker board on the color channel to help you check the status of the UV on the model.

here's a pretty detail UV tutorial from 3dtotal for UVing an object: http://67.15.36.49/team/Tutorials/ramy_texturing/ramy01.asp

I hope this would help~

[steveblake]

Actually if you want a hand with you're UV-ing, there's a video here that shows a comparative process:
http://www.amiga-team.com/videos/unwrapmaya/unwrapmaya.html

It's showing Roadkill, a small app works very well with maya, either as a seperate tool or as a plugin. Select along the edges of the mesh in the viewport...click and and you're done!.

http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/

Keep banging on about it...but can't recommend it highly enough!

:)

[PlanetaryWolf]

thanks all for the great help!

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