I have a question that might be super simple but can't seem to find a solution for it anywhere on the internet:
Is there away I can split open UVs/Shells off of a model [ideally right on top of the model in Viewport for the sake of precision] and utilize it's negative space in the UV map as character lines?
Reason why:
There's a clip showing how they did it for Guilty Gear Xrd with Softimage:
https://youtu.be/yhGjCzxJV3E?t=26m41s
Of course, in the video I have no idea on how to make the UVs totally clean looking like that in perfect squares and rectangles, but more importantly I simply do wish to know how I can make the negative space be applied to my model so I can design anime-like interior lines on their musculature/facial features.
My overall conclusion would involve the following steps:
1. Splitting the uvs in Maya's UV Editor so the model has negative space
2. Edit and apply a color [black] using Photoshop for all of the negative space that would appear in the UV.
3. Return the Maya and make the negative space part of the UVs again as new shells but this time sharpening the edges of every line
4. Save UVs and repeat the process with the next model. Once one model is finished, it'll be easier to apply with the next batch for my upcoming film
EDIT: Or, if possible, just color in the UV editor and highlight certain faces and narrow together the ending vertices [if this is possible please let me know lol].
If there was a tool to rectangularize all UVs, I could do what they did for Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball Z, but sadly there isn't one that I know of online. This niche is pretty small to find enough help in over the years. The UVs I'm using are Daz3D models for now until I can hire a team, which their models are complex as is.
