UV mapping and texturing pipeline

caughp

I've heard of a lot of people say how texture artists do the UV layout and other times by the modeler. My question is how would the texture artist know the UV layout? Even with a UV template you usually can only guess where it's located on the model. Is the only way they can achieve desired results by using a 3D package to locate where the UVs are located?

cryrid

3d packages certainly help (and personally, I'd hate to texture any model without being able to see what it actually looks like on the model).

Any baked information (normals, ao, lights, etc) can be a big help in knowing what you're looking at as well. Also textures where the color shifts like http://www.michaeldashow.com/tips/checker512x512.jpg (but again that requires seeing the result on the model)

tristamus

I'm sure it's a little different in different applications, but nowadays, things like Mudbox, 3d coat etc. allow you to just select shells right on your model in the viewport. You can then go see what correlates to what in the UV views. Or, in the case of mudbox and many other sculpting / painting apps, it doesn't really matter if you know exactly where the UV's are or not. If there is a designated Texture Artist, they can just paint the model in the app and not really worry about it (Given that the modeler already unwrapped things accordingly).

renderhjs

whenever I have to work with a designer or someone who is not so familiar with UV mapping (depending on the project). I bake them some hint maps in TexTools like:

• AO pass
  
• Blockout map for the mesh elements
  
• Blockout map for the smoothing groups
  

Whenever they preview the textured 3d model they can grasp easier which UV island goes where and how + one can faster select areas of UV islands using the magic wand tool.
Generally speaking its better if the person who is doing the Texture also does the UV-layout because he will better memorize where and how each cluster goes. This is especially true with tricky UV stuff like technical models with heaps of tiny UV islands.
On the other hand a modeller can do so many mistakes that might upset a texture artist - like not cleaning up faces that won't be visible or don't need to be textured - or not instantiating elements so its more hard work to unwrap or paint/ texture the instances.
Anyway in my work whenever I need to work with someone else I usually take them through the layout or make notes for them on a Photoshop layer (flow arrows, notes etc.)