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…
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…
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…
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…