Basics steps to UV’ing

Matthew Hyland CGA

In this document I will talk about the basic
grips of UV’ing an object.
I will talk about planar mapping how this
Links to the UV editor and how the UV texture
editor links with Photoshop

This will be the object I will be UV’ing.

 With in the UV texture
editor, this is how the
ladder looks.

UV’ing is the process before coming to texture an

object, it is like unwrapping a cube and seeing its net.
This is the same process for all the objects you create
in Maya, through UV’ing and planar mapping you
create a virtual net for when it comes to Photoshop you
will be able to then texture your object with in
Photoshop.
As you see here the object has not been laid out or
UV’d, and when coming to texture this in Photoshop, it
would become difficult and unclear what part your
texturing
As you see here after applying the UV
shader, you can see the texture being
stretched around the shape. This is
how a normal texture brought in via
Photoshop would look, it would look
stretched and distorted.

This is how a UV grid

looks, you apply the UV
grid just like any other
shader.

As you see the texture you have applied has also

appeared in the UV texture editer box.
In the Maya menu make sure you have
the polygons selected on the dropdown
menu, then locate the Create UV’s tab
and go to the ‘Planar Mapping’

Make sure on your model you have

highlighted the faces you need UV, UV a
model section by section, for
Example:
Front, back and sides
Once the Planar Map has been apply this box appears around the object also
highlighting around the edges you are Planar Mapping, the box around the
object is equal to, the textured box with in the UV Texture Editor.
In the channel box rotate the UV box till it is up right in the
texture editor and then scale the projection to 5 to fit with
the UV editor.

The Larger the number of the projection, the smaller the

UV’s will be on the Texture Editor, the smaller the
number, the larger the projection.
Follow the same
principle for the
sides.
While editing the UV’s for certain sides, be aware that there is a point in the middle
that needs to face outside towards the way the objects face is facing, you alter this
by rotating this around, to see what way the map is facing
by clicking the tool in the corner and this will give you
directional arrows in the middle.
To make it easier selecting the faces
press space and highlight the faces
from the four windows.
 Steps
When coming to UV’ing multiple amounts of
geometry facing up, such as window multiple window
frames on all sorts of levels, or stairs or objects like
this ladder. Instead of mapping one face each time,
highlight multiple faces and then Planar Map. Then
using the tool in the corner to get the position tools
up, move the map above all the highlighted faces.
 Laying out the UV’s
When finally Planar Mapping an
object, your UV’s would look
bunched up in the middle like this.
This is were you have to sort out
the UV’s ready for texturing and
you knowing were to texture.
First right click face, and then in your main
view select one of the faces on the model.
Doing this will single out one of the faces on
the texture editor. Then hold Ctrl and move
select ‘To UV’, doing this will then highlight the
UV’s surrounding that face
Once this is done go to select shell
and this will then highlight all the UV’s
surrounding.

as you only selected the face on one

of the lay outs, it will only highlight
that face’s UV’s.
With all the UV’s selected move the ‘shell’ across. Repeat this cycle, and remember
to place the shell’s, so that you understand which is which for example, the front shell
to the left, and the back shell to the right, and the left shells to the left and right shells
to the right. Also notice when you move the shells around on the UV Texture Editor,
the texture on the model also moves as well.
Going back to when we
UV’ed the steps, all the
shells have bunched up on
top of each other, you can
separate these individually
depending on how you want
to texture it, but to save
space you can over lay
them.
By using the front window
view I selected all the steps
by pressing shift, through
doing the same cycle of
holding Ctrl I then selected
all the UV’s. I have also
noticed that the UV’s are
not correctly aligned.
By selecting the shall and positioning it, I rotated the shell by using the
rotates in the corner in the UV Texture Editor. Also again notice as I
rotate the shell, the texture rotates as well.
Once everything is in order, the shells are ready to be organised to be
sewed.
At first you will have to organise the shells into position to be sewed.
To sew the edges together, right click in the UV texture editor area and
select edge, then highlight the edges, and then click the ‘Move and sew the
the selected edges’ tool and then the shells will jump together and stick
together.
The next stage is creating a UV snap shot for it to be ready to go into
Photoshop. You do this by highlighting all the UV’s on the Texture editor map,
and then in the Polygons drop down menu, you then scroll down to the UV
snapshot.
First you rename your UV layout in the
filename after ‘\outUV’. As you see in the
box on the right you’ll see the numbers of
size X and Y at 250. change these to 1050.
Opening up your UV map into
photoshop
First you locate the project with in your images folder and click on the
‘outUVLadder’ file. The Images file is set with in the Maya project files.
This is how the UV’s look with in Photoshop before
texturing, remember to delete the Alpha channel
depending on what you are doing otherwise when
reloading the texture on to your object, the texture will only
pick up on the wire frame and your main object will look
transparent.