Class:
For this week’s class, we were instructed to watch some pre-recorded videos Alec made on UV texturing and UV mapping.
—Video 1: UV intro & Dice UV Tutorial—
In the first video we were instructed to add a provided UV texture to the dice. After that was done we were also introduced to how to create a UV map/UV Island and piece it together by using the ‘move and sew’ tool or to take it apart with the ‘cut’ tool.
—Video 2: Cylinder shape UV Tutorial—
In the second video we worked on cylinders, one of which was stretched at one side like an airplane’s wing. When looking at the UV map of the warped cylinder the UV map was also warped and needed fixing, to do this I used the ‘unfold’ tool and scaled the pieces.
—Video 3: Barrel UV map Tutorial—
In the third video we were introduced to the ‘automatic’ tool to create a UV map of a barrel. It worked well but would take a lot of time to piece the UV map together. Using the ‘planar’ tool is better as it gives you more control of how the UV map will be made. Alec also showed how to straighten out the UV map if it was curved.
—Video 4: Arm UV Tutorial—
For the fourth video we were tasked with making a UV map of an arm. To begin I cut the hand from the arm at the wrist. Next I used the ‘cut’ tool to cut a line along the underside of the arm and used the ‘unfold’ tool. After that I used the ‘cut’ tool to create a cut along the side of the palm and fingers so that the hand, when unfolded, would look somewhat like a butterfly.
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Homework:
For homework we were tasked with finishing off any UV maps that we didn’t finish in class, watch the videos on how Alec made the table from last week’s modelling challenge and begin Assessment 1.
—Video 5: UV Map Hard Surface Model—
—Spine—
1. I first rotated the ‘spine’ of the model so that the seam was at the back and unfolded the ‘spine’ piece, adjusted the top to reduce warping.
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2. The Spine is complete!
—Pelvis—
3. Deleted one side of the model and ensured that the cut was snapped to the center of the grid. Using the ‘grow selection button’ to select the side of the ‘pelvis’.
4. I used the UV ‘planar’ mode on the ‘z-axis’ to project the UV map and repeated the same process for the front and back pieces of the ‘pelvis’.
5. I repeated the same process as before for the top and bottom only altering the axis that the UV map is projected from.
6. After, I flipped the ‘Islands’ that were red and deleted the history of the model. I duplicated the model and snapped them together, combining the two halves using the ‘combine’ tool and rearranged the UV map pieces.
7. I unfolded and sewed some of the halves back together and sewed the UV islands into one piece.
8. The pelvis is complete!
—Joints—
9. I reset the transformation of one of the joints and deleted the other one. Then I used the ‘cut’ tool to separate the two cylinders at the top of one of them.
10. I then made a cut on the underside of the cylinder and used the ‘UV -> Cylindrical’ tool to unwrap it. After, I made a cut along the bottom of the cylinders and unfolded the second cylinder and the top of the first one.
11. I sewed, straightened and unfolded the pieces and straightened the sides and unfolded the UV map.
12. The joint is finished!
—Final Touches—
13. I duplicated the ‘joint’ and removed the faint line on the mesh. I deleted the history of all the pieces and froze their transformations. I finally selected all the pieces and clicked ‘layout’ to put all the UV map pieces in relative size of each other.
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—Low Poly Man—
This was the last ‘scene’ in the Maya files that Alec provided us with. There is no video tutorial to assist us with this model. I used what I had learned from the previous tutorials and I am happy to say that the ‘dissection’ of this model was a success!
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Assignment 1 : Wand Concepts
Using the time theme that I chose last week I made some concepts for possible wand designs using the parts of the reference images that interested me the most.
I cleaned up all of my designs and silhouetted them to see which design was the strongest in terms of composition and how easy it was to read the design with minimal details.
After a lot of thought I chose to model the spikey one as I really like the overall shape of the staff and the idea that it could be used for magic or as a weapon.
I made a turnaround of the wand and a breakdown of where the pieces sit when disassembled.
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Final Thoughts:
Overall, I am happy with my understanding of UV mapping and how to break down models into simpler and more manageable pieces to create a UV map of.
I like the design of the wand that I have chosen and will begin modeling it next week.