CGTalk - Best UVMapping practice

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carloscidrais

01-09-2008, 06:17 PM

Alright guys, I am trying to establish what would the best practice for a professional texture painter be.
The bane of every texture painter's existence is UV Mapping ( at least mine is ), and of course the possibility of doing AUV or GUV tiles in Zbrush is an enormous timesaver.
I am now moving abroad, and will focus more on developing a carreer as a texture artist.

Doing it this way does however ( from what I can gather ) make it impossible to edit the textures in Photoshop ( the process I first learnt at school ) and of course, impossible to paint specular and transparency maps.
This seems to me the biggest disadvantage in this process.

What seems to be the consensus among professionals?

Do you still UVmap in (insert preferred piece of software here ) and then transfer it to a dedicated paint package or do you use Zbrush for UV unwrapping?

Thanks for clearing up my confusion.

Cheers.

soulburn3d

01-09-2008, 08:09 PM

Yes, UVMapping is still very complex, and no one method has risen up to replace all others. So I think the answer is there is no consensus, every method has advantages and disadvantages, and every company and individual has their own preference and pipeline.

Personally, if I'm going to go to zbrush or mudbox, I try and provide the original mesh with some good uvs in the original package. While zbrush's automatic mapping can be useful, it does produce maps that can't really be edited after the fact, so if you never plan on editing your displacement map after the fact, feel free to use them.

- Neil

KumarSG

01-10-2008, 04:33 AM

Hmm just felt i should say something. With all the new things in Zbrush and so on. The basic UV Map is still very much needed and appreciated. So look back once in a while and be patient and learn through the UVing. It has helped me much, although i am no texture painter. I just model and UV, but it has helped me much to ease the process.

Good Luck
Kumar

johnstrieder

01-11-2008, 02:17 AM

Hi, I use AUV-Tiles very often. Specular-Maps I paint in ZBrush too - for that I make a new Texture and paint black and white Colours on it. White for Example is maximum Specularity.

carloscidrais

01-11-2008, 08:24 AM

Thanks to everyone who is replying.

Js3d, I'm very interested in how you paint these specs. So far I haven't found much info on spec mac painting in zbrush. Your reply makes perfect sense, I'd be interested in seeing an online tutorial if you know of one.

Cheers.

johnstrieder

01-12-2008, 03:55 AM

Sorry, i don't know Tutorials about this. My Technique is just what you normally do with Photoshop, but here in 3D in ZBrush. I'm not finished with the how-to, I'm working on the best way for me and my Materials and Renderer.

Probably this is helpful for you?: I saw at CG-Talk many People who used the Bump-Map as Base for the Spec-Map. If you want to this, here's a way in ZBrush:

1. got to highest SDiv-Level
2. Tool/Masking/Mask by Cavity
3. Blur Mask
4. Choose Black Colour
5. Color/Fill Object

Then you can use a large soft Brush with Black Colour and darken Areas that should be less Specular.

John Strieder

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