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overlapping uv's for adding fur

19 REPLIES 19
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Message 1 of 20
cas.janssen
1018 Views, 19 Replies

overlapping uv's for adding fur

Hello,

 

A few weeks ago I started with designing a character in Maya for the first time. I watched a lot of tutorials and took notes from what I learned. I find it really hard and I'm constantly trouble shooting on google. I'm at a point where I want to add fur to my model. In tutorials I learned that in order to add fur properly (especially with short fur), you should make overlapping uv patches. He even explained how to do this, but I just dont get it. The guy that made the tutorial said the following things when people asked as to how they should make these overlapping pathes:

 

Tim Carter

 

I used multiple duplicated meshes to make it overlap. So will want to keep a full mesh you can keep duplicating for each piece to make it overlap. Just remember to delete history and freeze transforms whenever you are done making each patch.

Tim Carter

I do keep one whole mesh, then dupe and extract each patch from it so that way they can overlap. I recommend using display layers so it doesn't get too hard to manage. Also, be sure your extracting your patches from a clean mesh and cleaning once you extract (no history)
 
I tried Duplicating the whole mesh, selecting the edges of the patch i want to make, then go in to the UV texture editor, right klick cut uv edges (as i was told by tutorial). En drag them out of the uv mesh.
 
But when i Duplicate the clean mesh again,  I can't see the patch I just made in the editor. And duplicating and extracting a patch within the editor doesnt seem to work. Should I first duplicate the whole mesh within the viewport, then select the faces that form the patch, then extract them with the extract button, then select the edges of that patch, then go to the uv texture editor- right klick cut uv edges and drag them out? With not overlapping patches you can lay them all out in the same uv texture editor window, do you need to get all the overlapping patches in the same texture editor window? Or do you need to lay out every patch in a seperate window? I know I'm doing something stupid but it's just so hard to wrap my brain around what I should do now.
 
Do I need to make a whole new polygon mesh in my viewport aswell, made up out of al the overlapping patches? I this wat tim carter means by "I recommend using display Layers"?
 
Do I need to extract a piece from the duplicated mesh, en then select the object of the mesh I just extracted a patch from and delete that history? and then cut the Uv edges within the texture editor?
 
Could somebody please please please show me the moves I should make to get a step further with uv mapping and modeling my character.
 
 I BEG for someone to help me out because I cant find anybody in my circle that knows anything about the program. And I came this far, and just don't want to give up.
 
Excuse me if my English is a bit sloppy.
 
GTRZ
 
Cas

 

 

19 REPLIES 19
Message 2 of 20
_sebastian_f
in reply to: cas.janssen

hi,
can you maybe link to the tutorial?
i think it will help me to understand better what he´s talking about. in the moment i feel like you got confused at some point and mixing different steps or terms.
Message 3 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: _sebastian_f

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTCxhpzBBI4

 

Hello, thanks for your reaction!

 

Your right, I definitely got confused.

 

Above you'll find the youtube link. Around 1:45 min he starts talking about the overlapping patches. Though, people watching the video didn't understand either how they should map the overlapping patches. He answers them in the comments but I still have a hard time finding out how I should map. And of wich object I exactly should clear the history and freeze the transformation. It looks like he's pretty clear because other people don't ask anymore questions. But I just can't grasp how I should move on now.

 

Hope you can help me.

 

 

Message 4 of 20
FalconCrest
in reply to: cas.janssen

Are you using regular Maya fur or xGen ?
Message 5 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

I think I'm using regular maya fur. Not sure what X gen fur means.. saw people talking about it though. Just installed Maya 2015 and the updates service pack 5 and mental ray. I did put fur on my model but it was devided very uneven over the model. So I'm now trying to map the UV's of my model correctly in order te add fur. Why is it important to know wich fur I'm using is this stage of the proces?

 

 

Message 6 of 20
FalconCrest
in reply to: cas.janssen

There two different systems, I'd recommend you use Xgen for your fur, I think you'll find the results much better. If you rather continue to use Maya regular fur, can you show what your UV's look like ?
Message 7 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

Hello,

 

Is Xgen just like Mental Ray for rendering an update I can download somewhere? If it gives a better result than I don't see why I shouldn't switch over te X gen. If so, do you have a link I can use for installing it? And is it possible to install it at this stage of modeling my character? In that I haven't yet add fur to my character. I somewhat finished the basics of my model (grey and no textures/colors/fur), but as you can see, I just started to try to map my UV's in order to apply fur, and don't now what to do now. My UV's at this moment, are as far as I know on the same places where the virticies of the model are.

 

 

Message 8 of 20
FalconCrest
in reply to: cas.janssen

Xgen is new, similar to Mental Ray, as it's a plugin.  Can you show me your UV's ?

Message 9 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

I just tried to send my maya scene, not a valid extension though (.mb). How should I show you my UV's? A screenshot of my model in UV mode? I'm sorry, I'm new in this community and with Maya so I may ask stupid questions.

Message 10 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

Owww okay a similar plug in. I'll look it up and download it then. Thanx!

Message 11 of 20
FalconCrest
in reply to: cas.janssen

HaHa, it is already installed with Maya !
Message 12 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

Just opened Maya to check haha. I now see in my plug in manager that the xgen plug in boxes for loaded and autoload are checked. The mental ray plugin not. I see I need to check those boxes again after I close Maya. Does this mean I worked with Xgen al along?

And if its similar to Mental Ray, why cant I see it as a render view option? (like maya software, maya hardware, maya 2.0, may vector and mental ray). I should have the boxes for both the xgen plug in and the mental ray plug in checked right?

 

And how should I show u my UV's exactly?

 

 

Message 13 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: cas.janssen

Think I get it, mental ray is an overall renderquality plug in and Xgen is a plug in specifically for fur 🙂

Message 14 of 20
FalconCrest
in reply to: cas.janssen

Correct. 🙂 XGen can also be used for Hair as well 🙂
Message 15 of 20
_sebastian_f
in reply to: FalconCrest

while xgen can be a good solution for hair i´ll try to answer the original question quickly.

what he´s talking about in the video in the beginning means to create different, overlapping and as square as possible patches of geometry (overlapping to not get seams in the fur at the geometry borders). ones you did this you have to create uv´s per geometry patch and while they use all the same 0-1 uv space when you select all of them the uv´s of the single patches in itself are non overlapping. hope it makes sense for you.
Message 16 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: _sebastian_f

Hello,

 

Owww, so I should first devide my geometry up in different patches. And by deviding my geometry up in patches, I devided my UV's in these patches aswell? So I should duplicate the mesh I want to devide, Xtract the patch and Delete the rest of the copied geometry. And should I then put each patch in its own layer?(Tim Carter: "I recommend using diplay layers")

 

He's talking about freezing the transformation and deleting the history. The freezing of the transformation is so that the patches stay in place, I understand. What exactly is the deleting the history part for? Delete by type means I delete the history for the object I selected right, of wich object should I delete the history than? Of the patch that I extracted from the copied mesh of wich I deleted the rest?

 

When I select all the patches I made you'll find them all in my UV editor if I'm understanding  it correctly. And then I can 'run a script' like he's saying in the tutorial, and I can start pulling out the UV's of the patches over the UV space.

 

Another thing.

 

I am mapping a mole character. I only want fur on a part of his body I allready devided from the mesh (1 whole mesh for fur). But when I'm only working on half of the geometry, like I did all along the proces of creating the mole, then those patches in the middle don't overlap. So That means that the fur can show strange behaviour there when I mirror the geometry once I'm ready with UV mapping 1 half of this area I can imagine. Show I think it's best to devide the whole mesh in patches now, instead of deviding only half and mirroring geometry? Or do you maybe have a tip for this issue?

 

Thanks so far for your help. It became more clear to me now, I think. Maybe when I get answers to these follow up questions I can get on with modeling my character with a little more hope and confidence for finishing it haha.

 

 

 

 

 

Message 17 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

Thanks!!
Message 18 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

OOOOHI'm using the wrong shelf and method to ad fur. I finally get it!!! Thanks

Message 19 of 20
FalconCrest
in reply to: cas.janssen

Your UV's are separate from your geometry, by dividing your geometry won't effect your UV's, both are independent.

Tim Carter suggestion is one to follow 🙂

Deleting the history for an object, frees up system resources, and can potentionally save Maya from crashing, although for a powerful system, it will take some time, obviously 🙂

When you mirror your geometry the fur should mirror as well ? I've never used Maya Fur, I'm only using Xgen when it comes to fur and hair, maybe someone here can help or someone from Autodesk. Glad we both could help you up to this point. 🙂 I hope you enjoy your weekend and same to you
Sabastian 🙂
Message 20 of 20
cas.janssen
in reply to: FalconCrest

Hello,

 

I found out that I was using the wrong shelf and the wrong way to add fur. I used my Xgen shelf, and tried putting fur on and it was nicely even destributed all over my polygons. It felt like a major breaktrough, sooo happy,  with maya fur it wasdistributed verry uneven and weird but now it's perfect.

 

And I havent really mapped my uv's. Beacause the coloring I want on ad to my character is very basic I wanted to use the 3D tool to paint directly on my object, zo that I later on could use this painted texture as my reference for the color the fur gets wich I ad.

 

Is it still necessary to UV map? My 3D paint tool doenst work. I'm not sure whats wrong yesterdag I saw the brush but it didn't show any paint when I dragged it accross the surface of my object. I tried to select my object but the paint just flew around somewhere far away from the object in my scene. And now I can't even see the brush tip in my viewport on my object. I selected the ocject, assigned a texture, then why can't I paint on my object? Do I need to lay out my Uv's first to do this?

 

 

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