Maya 8.0 Texturing:

 

**Note**

Before you start UV mapping a Polygon Model, Completely Finish Modeling your object. Some of the polygon modeling tools, (like Bevel and Wedge) either completely erase your texture maps(bevel) or make a complete mess of your UV map by layering new faces and vertices on top of existing ones. (wedge and extrude).

 

Texturing in Maya Requires you to do three things:

 

Create a Texture Map or image to map onto an Object.

 

Create a Maya Shader (In the Hypershade Window) with your texture linked to it.

 

A UV Map that matches up with the Applied Texture.

 

A Texture map is basically an image that you have chosen, and edited to work on the 3D object. Almost any image has the potential to be used as a texture in Maya. For now I will explain the texturing process in Maya using existing textures and texture maps just to make things go faster.

 

Creating a Maya Shader:

 

Always start with a Lambert Shader, the material can be changed later in the attributes editor, Lambert is the easiest way to start.

 

Creating a Maya Shader using an Image file is fairly painless. Using the Hypershade Window, you have access to many types of materials. (Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade)

 

 

A Lambert shader produces a surface that appears flat, with no reflections or highlights on it. Lambert shaders are good for modeling things like chalk, matte paint, and other unpolished surfaces.

For metallic surfaces, like brass or aluminum, use a Blinn shader.

For glass and glossy plastic surfaces, or car and bathroom mouldings, use a Phong or PhongE shader.

For microgrooved surfaces like CDs, brushed metal, or hair, use an Anisotropic shader.

When you click on one these materials it appears in the Lower section of the Hypershade window, this is the Graph area. The Upper area lists all of your textures together. Before you do anything, rename the material so that it is easy to recognize and find.

 

To add an Image to this material, scroll down the Side menu until you reach “File” (It looks like Mountains) When you click on it, a black box linked to a “Place2dtexturenode” box appears in the Graph Area. Click and hold on the Black Box with the Middle Mouse Button and drag it on top of the material in the graph area. Release the Middle Mouse Button and Select “Color” from the Menu that appears.

To attach an Image to a file, Double Click on the file node to bring up its Attributes Window. In the attributes widow, Click on the small File icon and Browse to the image you want to attach.

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Creating a UV Map for your Texture:

 

Three main types of projections found under the Create UV’s Menu:

 

Planar Mapping: Planar mapping organizes the UV’s of a selected polygon along a single projection in a single direction. This option is the easiest to understand and organize out of the three main UV Creation Options. Its best to start out with this option and then move onto the others once you are comfortable using the UV projection tools.

 

Cylindrical Mapping: Cylindrical Mapping organizes the UV’s of a selected polygon by organizing them as if they were projected from an imaginary cylinder.

 

Spherical Mapping: Spherical Mapping organizes the UV’s of a selected polygon by projecting them inward from an imaginary sphere.

 

Creating a UV Map:

 

Open Window > UV Texture Editor (the UV map Editing window)

 

Now, In the Main Maya Window, Go to Face Mode on your Model and Select the particular faces you want to map together. Think about which projection mode would work best for your object. For a object with lots of flat surfaces, Creating a map with planar projection would be best, for a tall round object a cylindrical projection would work better.

 

Continue until you have your entire model UV mapped. Once everything is mapped, go to the UV Texture Editing window and clean up you UV-map as much as possible. So no Areas of the mapped texture looks stretched or distorted on the model.