UVs, Texturing and a lot of questions

#1

Hello guys

First of all, hello to everyone here and thank you for the nice community you are. I’ve been lurking these forums pretty much since I started to learn CG, about 5 months ago. This is the first time when I post so I just wanted to say a quick hello and thank you.

Now… As I said, I started to learn CG by myself. I will skip the whole thing and jump to the most relevant informations. I decided to focus on modelling. In the past few months I tryed to get on with my anatomy studies, practice modelling, learn Maya, learn Zbrush, practice some more anatomy and speed sculpts and so on. Now I got to the point where “I THINK” I might be able to take a box or a sphere and make a complete proper character… almost… Almost because I do not understand UVs… I mean… when I think I start to get the point I find something that basically tells me something different than what I thought…

To get in more detail, and to why I am writing this topic, I want to find what are UVs… What I know at the moment is that they are basically a representation of the polys you have on the model. You take those polys and put them on a sheet in 2D which is called … UV map… Right? Now, what is texturing? What I know is that texturing is the proses of painting those 2d UV maps in Photoshop or whatever other similar software… My question here is… Is this right? Is this a normal production method? I mean, for example in Zbrush, you can bring in a model with UVs made in Maya and than using polypaint you can basically texture your model… If Zbrush would be the only way to do this in 3d I bet it would be way more popular than it already is… So… to reinforce my question… Should I learn to create UVs and paint them in Photoshop while they are unwrapped in 2d? Or is there actually a more STANDARD way to do this?

I want to get on and build my porfolio and since I am learning by myself I want to build it close to what is actually used in a production environment.

So please guys, if you can and have the time and the patience, explain me, briefly, how is this part treated in a studio environment and what should I learn? What is the exact proses after modelling your character… between the finished grey model and render ready textured model? If you can point out some tutorials on Digital Tutors, Gnomon or any other online learning website please do so since this would help me even more.

Thanks a lot for your time and patience and if I was unspecific about certain things please ask ahead and I will reply ASAP. Thank you!

Dan

#2

You can paint your textures in whatever software you feel most comfortable in, but good UVs are still needed unless you use PTex (which isn’t supported by all renderers yet). I do believe that PTex is the future but for now you still need to do good UVs. Think of it like skinning an animal - you remove the skin, and flatten it out. That’s what a UV map is - you’re taking the X, Y and Z 3D coordinates and unwrapping them into U and V 2D ones. The UV map should match the topology of the 3D map as closely as possible in terms of proportions and should be as distortion-free as possible. Applying a checkerboard image map to your model while you’re unwrapping is a good way to check that the UVs are correct.

#3

Hey Leigh!

Thanks a lot for the reply mate! So you are basically saying that, after the unwrapping and after matching the uv with your mash topology, you take that 2d pelt and paint it like that in Photoshop or w/e other program? The thing is, I find it very odd to do that since the UVs are not always perfectly symmetrical and because if you paint a high poly char, and you want to add some details in this stage than I think is quite odd and difficult to put your paint where you want it to be…
Let me know if you any good guides for this! Book, dvd or a simple online tutorial, doesn’t matter! Thanks a lot mate!

#4

Basically yes, once you have your UV map sorted out, it’s ready for texturing, and you paint it any way you like. Personally I’d recommend investigating a 3D painting app like Mari, as it’s easier to place your details accurately and intuitively within a 3D space, and it’s more forgiving on less-than-perfect UVs.

I can’t really think of any tutorials or anything offhand, although I have a few basic texturing articles on my website (link in signature), that I add to occasionally.

UV mapping is something that many people find initially confusing but once you get the hang of it you’ll realise it’s actually quite straightforward and you’ll wonder why you struggled with it initially, so just keep at it, and you’ll come right.

#5

Thanks again dude! Really helpful! Thank you so much for bringing Mari into discussion… I barely heard of it at some point and I never bothered to check it out. I will definetly check it and see how it goes… Is it comparable with Zbrush’s Polypaint? I might have just said something utterly stupid so forgive me if I did so!
Yea, I do find it confusing :banghead: but slowly I am getting a deeper understanding somehow… I decided to go with a modelling tutorial as well in which I made sure that I am walked through the uv proses and texturing. Hope that will add to my knowledge.
Also thank you for the website. I will check it out and see what I can find there!

You’ve been very helpful! Thank you!

Dan

#6

Ok… I have a question about Uvs…

Lets say we have a mesh… a base mesh. It has let’s say 500 polys. This is the base mesh which will be taken into Zbrush, let’s say, and modeled further. Now, my question is, if I lay out the UVs on the base mesh, will I be able to properly texture the character once is done in Zbrush? So the final model will be… 2 mil. polys. Can I proceed and texture it?

Thanks!

Dan

#7

export the texture map from the highest subdivision.

#8

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