topic Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor in Maya Forum

Separating UV textures in Texture editor

locktofer — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 03:07:24 GMT

Hi, I have a model, enclosed (.obj file), and three texture maps (.png), with .mtl file which I have re-named as .txt because otherwise you cannot upload it to this forum. The problem is this, if you import the .obj file into Maya, and open the UV editor, you find all the UVs for the character piled on top of each other on the first quadrant. The model is not broken out into separate sections that go with each of the texture maps. How on earth can we separate the right UVs that go with each texture map? This seems like an impossible problem Moreover, I assume the way the UVs are laid out is such that they are in the correct place, it is just that they are all piled up onto each other. I cannot see away to apply them manually to the model. I am using Maya 2010.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

locktofer — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 03:05:18 GMT

Here are the two other files that I could not upload due to the file limit. Thanks and regards!

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

mspeer — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 10:36:43 GMT

Hi!

The character opens fine, but you want to separate the UV's for further editing, right?

Use Hypershade:

1. Select Material

2. Edit -> Select Object with Material

Then you have the faces and the corresponding UV's.

You could copy the UV's to a new UV Set or whatever you need for your project.

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

locktofer — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 14:30:58 GMT

Thanks for the reply. Ultimately what I want to do is apply the textures correctly to the model. I cannot do that the way it is, can I? Or how do you do it exactly? I cannot apply the textures manually because the model is not broken down into its corresponding parts that I can just add any given texture to the correct anatomical part in the model. The parts of the model are not separate. So how would you go about applying the textures do you think?

I will try your solution below when I get home tonight but I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Thanks very much for replying though.

Best regards,

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

sean.heasley — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 19:38:41 GMT

Hi @locktofer

To clarify a bit on what @mspeer is saying, you need to select the faces and apply each texture to them depending on what texture they are using.

Take the head texture for example:

1. Select every face that will be using that texture

2. Right Click and select 'Apply New Material'

3. Apply the face texture

Now that texture should appear properly all across the face, hair etc.

This same process would be done for the body, legs etc.

Please let me know if this information helps you understand the next steps you need to take or if you still need help with this issue!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

locktofer — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:19:36 GMT

Hi Sean, thanks for the reply. I understand what you are saying, the problem is that I do not know exactly what polygons of the model need to be selected. I know how to apply the texture to polygons (you taught me this before in a previous post), but what polygons exactly do I need to select? I could miss some and it would not work, or select too many and it would not work. The person who made the model does not specify that, and did not divide the model up into sections so you could just select the entire section and apply the appropriate texture just to that, so how the heck can I figure out all the polygons/vertices that belong to each texture? The same goes for the other parts of the model. Since the UVs are piled up on top of each other I cannot see which ones go with which texture either. Is there any way that we can figure out which UV and which polygons/vertices go with which texture, or separate the UVs that belong to each texture in the UV editor? That is the crux of my original question.

Sorry for not being so clear, and let me know if you have other ideas about how to solve this problem.

Best regards,

Rick

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

sean.heasley — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:55:06 GMT

Hi @locktofer

Ah ok, I can see how complicated it can be trying to figure out what texture goes where but I made a quick video showing how I would go about it that hopefully help you out!

Please let me know if this helps solve your issue or if you need any more information!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

locktofer — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 03:19:49 GMT

Hi Sean, I really appreciate the time you took to do this video. this was the best, thanks so much! I totally understand it now. I can't thank you enough.

I will go in there and do this but I now fully understand how it works, this is really great.

All the best,

Rick

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

locktofer — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 02:14:42 GMT

HI Sean, I had a follow-up to this thread. I wanted to try a different method to apply textures: The idea is to group the polygons of different parts of the body into a sub-mesh of the body, and then apply the correct textures to each part. I used the method that you show in this video to pick out the polygons of say the head of Kain, but since this is done in object mode, I cannot group them together into a mesh. (Grouping doesn't appear to work, or at least I could not get it to work). Is there any way to do this? I enclose another character here, Raziel, which you can see when you click the mesh only certain parts are selected, and then textures can easily be applied to those parts. I want to do this with the original mesh in this thread (Kain). Can you suggest a solution?

Thanks and regards,

Rick

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

mspeer — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 12:38:16 GMT

Hi!

If you want separate objects you need to split the object into separate parts (select faces and then Mesh -> Extract)

Re: Separating UV textures in Texture editor

sean.heasley — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 14:55:33 GMT

Hi @locktofer

@mspeer summed it up perfectly. You would select the faces like how I did in the video I provided and then use Mesh->Extract.

Please let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!