UV Mapping The Next Steps

This week we compacted UV Mapping basics, ambient occlusion, and generally how Maya renders the lighting and texture information in a scene. To do this, we had to create checkered textures within our "hypershade" and practice maintaining a consistent square pattern about our object. This is to make sure when we apply any preset or created texture map in Maya there are no distortions. Much like how you have to create clean geometry throughout, you also need to lay out your UV's consistently (they are a representation of your texture.

We also had to practice with multiple UV mapping techniques, such as planar and cylindrical. However, like most students who dabbled within the UV mapping options also tried methods like the camera based UV map. Which was extremely convenient for the top down view of the candle stick holder shown here. Essentially it will automatically create a consistent UV Layout based on your camera and its orientation to your object. However, all other portion unseen by your camera will not be UV mapped at all. Meaning that using basic techniques in tandem with advanced convenience is a must.

Obviously during all of this we still had to create a few more difficult assets to make our future composition final that much more appealing. So this week I created a few more complicated models, including this candlestick, a clothespin, and a magnifying glass.

All of this again is to help guide us into what was a much shorter finals week and only to focus on composing and rendering our models. So next week I'll update you in regards to how we rendered and created our final compositions in 3DF.