MAYA tutorial: UV splitting and material introduction of the model

What is UV

• After the model is made, you need to map the model, and you need to use the UV function.

UV compiler introduction

• Open the UI compiler
  • The main menu has aUV->UVCompiler, you can click to open
    
    
  • Create a model and you can see the default UV of the model
    

UV compiler function usage

• UV mode selection
  • In the UV compiler, long press the right mouse button to select UV points, edges, faces, etc.
    
• Observe UV

  • In order to facilitate the observation of UVs, a checkerboard material is usually assigned to the model first. Click on the model, long press the right mouse button, and selectMaterial properties。
    

  • A window will pop up on the right, click on the square behind the color. If this window does not pop up, click onceMaterial properties
    

  • choose2D texture->Checkerboard
    

  • Press 6 to display, you can see that there is a checkerboard texture

    

  • Then select material properties
    

  • Click on the icon behind the color
    

  • You can modify the UV direction to repeat and change the size of the checkerboard
    
    

UV split

• Why do UV splitting? After we create the model, we need to texture the model. How to ensure that the texture is not stretched? At this time, UV splitting is required.

• We first create a model and give it a checkerboard material (checkerboard allows you to intuitively see whether the material is stretched)
  

• Each square of the checkerboard is a square. At this time, we can see that the checkerboard is stretched quite seriously. In this case, if we texture the model, it will cause the texture to be stretched and deformed.

• When creating a model, there will be a default UV. Select the UV to delete it and create a camera-based UV.
  

• Created a new UV
  

• The next step is to split the UVs.

• In the UV compiler it is possible to select edges
  

• First select the four edges above, then right-click and select Cut and Paste
  

• After cutting and pasting, select the UV shell
  

• Then select the move tool to move the upper surface away
  

• We cut and paste every aspect of it
  

• After cutting and pasting, select them all, click Expand on the right, and there will be no deformation.

• Then select a certain surface, perform operations such as rotation and stretching on it, and compare it with the model so that the checkerboard can be displayed normally.
  

• Manually adjust so that each face can display the checkerboard normally without stretching.
  

• After the adjustment is completed, select all models and click Arrange
  

• It will be automatically arranged into this 1 x 1 square. Note here that all UVs must be within the 1 x 1 square.
  

• After arranging the layout, I looked at the model again. There was no obvious stretching of the checkerboard. In this case, when we texture the model, it will not cause the texture to be stretched and deformed.
  

• Select the material properties, right-click the color, and select Disconnect to remove the checkerboard material.
  
  

• Click the button behind the color,
  

• Select 2D texture, select file
  

• Click this to select an image file
  

• As you can see, the image was successfully pasted onto the model without any deformation.
  

UV attribute copy

• If there are two identical models, one UV has been split and the other has not been split, as shown in the figure
  
• Split UV attributes can be copied to the new model
• Select Grid in the main menu, click the box behind the transfer attribute, and a window will appear.
  
  
• Select the model with UVs laid out, then add a new model, select the component in the sampling space, and click Apply.
  

• As you can see, the new model also has UVs laid out.

Add materials to the model

• After laying out the UVs, you need to assign materials to the model. We have introduced how to assign materials to models above, but the method introduced above will assign the same material to all models in the scene. Here is an introduction to how to assign different materials to different models.
• First in the menu bar, clickwindow->Rendering compiler->Hypershade. A window will pop up.
  
  
• Create a new material, such as marble
  
• After the creation is successful, you can see the corresponding material in the property bar. If you don’t know which one it is, click it and you can preview the material on the right.
  
• Right-click and hold the mouse button here, and select Specify Texture Material for Viewport.
  
• A new material is added here.
  
• Then select the model in the scene, right-click and hold the material, and select Specify Material for Current Selection.
  
• The material can be successfully assigned to the model.
• Following this step, you can assign different materials to each model