Using Maya, projecting a texture?

#1

Hey everyone, I’m just getting my feet wet in the 3D world, so I hope you dont mind the noobish question. Im currently designing a sleeve-styled tattoo for someone and I thought it would behoove me to see it wrapped around an arm so I’ll know more effectively where each element of the sleeve should go.
I’ve mapped out the client’s measurements like a UV map in photoshop, to be sure that the image will be useable for the tattoo artist without any stretching/shrinking/editing involved. I’d like to see more clearly what this will look like around the arm, so I’m trying to figure out how to wrap the design around the mesh arm I have (a freely distributed one). The UVs look very neat, so I dont imagine I will have any difficulty were I instructed to place the image over the UV.
A tutorial I found is for projection mapping, but my laptop falls short of “high quality rendering” option. I wasnt sure what to put for the texture resolution, so I simply put the width, in pixels (1k) and the texture went black :frowning:

Anyone know how to fix this or a faster/easier way to do this?

#2

I may be misunderstanding your project but it doesn’t sound like you should need projection mapping for what you are doing. The UVs are like a flattened version of the object, like a label peeled off of a can. So, if you just put the tattoo in a texture and assign the texture to the arm’s material, you should see it on the arm in some form. Then to line it up how you want it, you could either move the UVs or edit the texture in photoshop to fit the current UVs.

#3

Thanks for the assistance, Kemny. I tried it that way, and here’s my result: UV/Mesh alignment

adjusting any of the attributes in the settings doesnt change the image’s position at all, or it’s scale :\ Im not sure what Im doing wrong.

#4

No problem, UVs take a bit of getting used to. First thing you need to do is open the UV Texture Editor (in the Window submenu). Check out the maya docs (Here: http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2010help/files/Editing_UVs_Move_rotate_and_scale_UVs.htm ) and try scaling and moving the UVs in the editor. The part that you think is the arm is actually still part of the hand. One easy way to figure out how they line up is to have both your perspective viewport and the UV texture editor open, and select a face or some uvs and see where they are on the model. By moving and scaling your UV shells you should be able to accomplish what you’re looking for.

Good luck! If you’re willing to take the time, creating new UVs yourself is a good way to learn them, although for this project you don’t have to :slight_smile:

#5

This is confusing, do you want distorted UV’s? Wouldn’t that make it more difficult to paint a tattoo texture for the arm. To me it looks like your UVs are not proper as you have a pattern going through your fingers which are not even drawn on the UV’s on the right side image. Although is that image even of the UV texture editor window?..
Post an image of a split view of persp view model with texture showing and the other uv editor window to see what’s really going on.
If you don’t want distorted UV’s, or you don’t know if they are distorted (they look to me like they could be) then place a default checker to the shader to check how it looks. If the UVs are all good then the arm will look like a chess board wrapped around it with minimum stretching/sqaushing pattern…
The fingers on the image you posted is basically throwing me off what it is you’ve actually done as they don’t correspond…

#6

Exactly why I thought I should try projection mapping, because it really doesnt make any sense. Here’s what the image looks like on the mesh in Photoshop: PS 3D UV view

And here’s the side-by-side UV and arm (I’m not sure how to get the texture/material to show in the UV editior itself): Maya UV/Mesh

Weird it would look right in Photoshop and not Maya :< same UVs in both. So I assumed there was some sort of placement attribute that was wrong in Maya, but I really ant figure it out.

#7

In UV texture editor window go to ‘Image’ tab > select ‘Display Image’ to show the texture on the grid.
My guess is that the texture file is probably coming in stretched or squashed possibly because the file resolution may not be square (eg. 1024x1024). The texture file size ratio has to be kept equal to fill the entire uv tile with no distortion.
Hope this helps.

#8

Display Image is selected :\ Display Img

I also took a snapshot of the UVs (as shown in the PS image in my last post), aligned the design over the arm’s UV and assigned that to the material. I do this all the time for Second Life with their avatar meshes, I’ve just never needed to specifically go into the UV panel since always just seemed to align perfectly. So I s’pose it is something on my end we’re just not seeing.

I suppose at this point since the image is showing ok in Photoshop, I should just use that to go back and forth with to make sure the design elements line up over the shoulder/elbow, that’s all I really need it for. It would be cool to solve this little texture problem though so I can render out a turn around for them for progress WIPs and final

#9

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