Perfectly Aligned Pixel Art Textures?

Pilamin

How do I get a perfectly aligned UV map? I mean pixel perfect. I'm a newbie using low polys and low res textures in an attempt to learn the basics. So apologies if the answer is obvious.

My problem is that I don't know how to properly unwrap the UV in order to be able to texture details at the pixel level throughout the model, without stretched or bisected pixels, etc... I also assumed the checkerboard was an accurate guideline to represent the pixels (the squares on the checkerboard is also how I intended to place the pixels, if that's any help).

Here's what I'm struggling with. UV unwrapping the model in Unfold3D:



The UV map and model in Maya, with texture applied (the dark brown line):



That dark brown line should neatly, perfectly line up with the front face; but it's also "leaking" onto the top face as well as being bisected by the seam. The height of the line is a single square pixel. This is why I need the maps to be perfect: I am drawing textures at the pixel level.

I know I'm doing something wrong. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Autarkis

Can you post a screenshot of your uv layout with that texture applied in the uv editor window in maya?

Pilamin

Sure. Here's the texture alongside the model in Maya (I circled the parts that correspond):



It looks like I'm deliberately drawing the line to be messed up. But bear in mind that the PSD texture is 128x128, and so that leads me back to my issue: I'm drawing at the pixel level, and my pixel grid is not lined up properly with the UV map, thus any detail will always be far, far from where it should correspond to on the model.

This is what I meant by trying to imitate the checkerboard. If my UV map was like that, then I'd be able to draw the pixels on perfectly, with no misaligned/stretched/bisected details.

Kurt Russell Fan Club

The checkerboard is going to be perfectly square but it won't necessarily be the same resolution as your texture.

I don't use unfold3d but if it's a decent program there should be a way to either change the size of the checkerboard squares, or use a different texture instead of the checkerboard. Max has had an option to set up the texture size and then snap to pixel for years, so really I'd expect unfold3d to have one as well.

zakhar2

Have you tried using the pixel snap setting in the maya UV editor to align it manually?

Pilamin

I took both your suggestions and tried adjusting the UV within Maya. I'm a newbie, so that option never occurred to me. I assumed that textures lived and died by their UV maps, with no going back.

I'm still learning how to use the grid and pretty much everything else in Maya's UV Texture Editor. But from what I can tell, it's doing what I need for it to do; or at least an approximation of it.

Here, I adjusted the brown line to align perfectly along the front face:



I'm still not confident I am aligning my UVs properly to the mesh. This seems like a clumsy workaround that will, in general, produce inaccurate results. Still, it's a step in the right direction.

Internet Friend

I can't speak directly to using Maya, but in Max I'd do this by first making a bitmap checker at whatever map resolution then applying that as a texture or use the Pick Texture option in the editor to set the UV background to it. Then turn off the grid and use Pixel Snap to lay out UVs. At least in Max you have pretty limited options in adjusting the UV editor's grid, using a bitmap as a replacement grid this way can be a workaround.