Best way to uvmap a character ?

jimpaw

I Have just finnished my first lowpoly character and am ready to uvmap it. now to my questions.

1. what is the best way to uvmap a character if you want to paint your uv (flat) in photoshop ? , I quess a way that make it easy to understand where all part belongs and leave the face rather intact, right ?.

2. What is the best way to uvmap a character if you are ONLY planning to paint the uv in a program like Mudbox (directly on the 3d model in there) ?

Adam L. Gray

Well, I'm no char artist. But I think, the best way would prolly be hiding your seams as much as possible, while still avoiding too much stretching.

Then if you bake an ao, you should be able to tell which part is what on the uv layout I think.

And once you painted the texture for your character, go into max, mudbox, maya or whichever you prefer and use paint tools to paint out the seams.

I'd suggest looking at other character models and see how they unwrapped theirs though

r_fletch_r

The way you model your mesh has a lot to do with this as well. spending a few polygons making sure that seams appear along logical borders in the model can be very helpfull. for instance along the belt-line between shirt and trousers. along the seam between the main torso area of a shirt and the sleeves. In general i try and make my models seams match a physical seams as much as possible. aside from that try and hide them in less visible places on the model.

So far as working in mudbox goes id try and keep your layout as clean as when you just paint in photoshop. its allways usefull to be able to open a texture in photoshop and be able to edit it. its also good because it means other people who open your model will have an easier time working with it.

jimpaw

What i am really wondering about is the face, some people put a seam in the middle of the face and mirror it, and other do a facemap that flattens everything. what is good for what ?, you have any example of uvmaps you made that i can look at?

I think the best way to paint is directly in 3d, the problem is that all the programs that i have seen wont do it good enought. Mudbox sucks at this (its not nearly as sensetive enought and the shaders suck as well) and uvpaint i have heard is slightly better. the plugins in cs4 seems to be a cool thing but Nvidias shitty graphics card (gtx 460) ruins the entire photoshop so i have to use Cs2 and that version does not support that 3d painting function thanks alot man !

r_fletch_r

What problem do you have with mudbox? What exactly are you trying to achieve. you might want to try the 'export screen to PSD' option in the file menu. it lets you export to photoshop. paint there and sent it back to mudbox.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxoGn1qPhYA[/ame]

jimpaw

r_fletch_r wrote: »

What problem do you have with mudbox? What exactly are you trying to achieve. you might want to try the 'export screen to PSD' option in the file menu. it lets you export to photoshop. paint there and sent it back to mudbox.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxoGn1qPhYA[/ame]

[/QUOTE

I have seen that function before. again its not the same thing its way to stiff to paint like that and the shaders in mudbox doesnt di the texture justice, the closest thing you will get to the shading in max is to choose flat light, and that look really bad becouse there is no light whats so ever. but thats a start for sure, is this the way you paint your texture ?