UV mapping basics video tutorials

[erikals]

now, i'm a newbie at the area,
so things tend to take time in these videos, a lot of "hmmm...."

hope it is of some use
(please tell if something is wrong, should be added)

ok, here we go...

UV1 mapping - Plane, Cube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kCH5vjppGE

UV2 mapping - Spheres
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H47HnhPn9HA

UV3 mapping - Cylinder, part A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sg2M8P0Sx8

UV4 mapping - Cylinder, part B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXZvSWkc-PI

UV5 mapping - Pyramid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuEF1FVlkqY


this one will be added to youtube later on,... > plg uv limits
http://www.newtek.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=75052&d=1247112101

[kojean]

Thanks again. I'm sure these will be helpful.

[yaschan]

I'm sure these will be helpful for many people.
I wish tutorial on more complex objects.

[pdp editor]

thanks for sharing

[probiner]

Good to see basic UV videos :) I think all this sharing in NT foruns comes from the good influence of William Vaughn's videos and how we feel thankfull and want to keep that flow.
My first tutorials on this matter were these (http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/LightwaveTuts/LWPages/LWUVStart.html) (they were on NT site)

I saw all vids, liked particulary the one about sphere, but there's some stuff i'll point out.

First of all for overall performance, i think you need to speed up a little :P
Make a guideline paper to keep you in the line of thought, speak out a bit more loud and with energy. And make some repetitions before the video and stick to what you want to talk and share with people. Errors, bugs and limitation warnings are always a good heads up, but for tutorial intentions, solutions should have more focus. :P

Aside from this, one thing i it made me go :eek: is to see that you managed to generate a neat UV with Spherical. I can never get that, i always get this(image), always.
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s202/animatics/Lightwave/spherical.png Nice to see that actually works, i dont know what im doing wrong, eheh


What you're doing is good stuff and for those that are now discovering 3D is great. Therefore, i think you need a little more consistence and acuracy in the videos.

For example in the cilinder. You didn't point out Unwelding the Seam of the tube, wich is quite fundamental for when we use Cilinder method for a head or so. The proportions between Tube's Widht and Height, and the Caps are a bit sloppy. You didn't apply any Manual Unwrap using morphs in any of the vids, wich is a great way to flat stuff and organize the mesh before generating UV. (Image to illustrate what i'm saying, not actually explanation of the process, since i used cheezy methods)
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s202/animatics/Lightwave/UV-cilinder.png

I liked the videos, but as for fundamentals, they could be more juicy :P

I hope these words help to improve the stuff you do, not stopping it. :thumbsup:
Cheers.

PS: Texture Guide (Map>Texture>TextureGuide) is also great :)

[erikals]

probiner, thanks, i think you are right in some things.

tricky to know what the right way is though...

it might have been better to show "how to" without the "how not to",
but i felt showing the pitfalls was good too.
..could be that showing pitfalls should have been a video of it's own,
like i did with the PLG UV tutorial...

"speak out a bit more loud and with energy"
hehe http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/grin.gif so true, i noticed too... i'm sort of in a "Driving Miss Daisy" mood http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

thanks, that's the kind of input i wanted http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif
i do plan on some other UV tutorials, we'll see, takes time...

[probiner]

Well erikals
i must admit i was a bit harsh and not fair. I had never done a videocast tutorial before so i didn't knew how hard it is to keep things in mind, keep the english right, don't stall, don't loose line of tough and do things right and fast.

So i did this video aannnddd took me like... 30 takes... or more... cause everytime, i kept say something really stupid in english or curling my tongue or.. something would go really bad in the content of the tutorial, or i would freeze not knowing what was coming next...

So, it's a bit hard :P

Now you can fire back to me :2guns: , erikals :D
Make fun of my accent that goes from UK English to US English to Italian English :D The wrong verb tences, the missing 's', how crazzy i spin the model all the time or move the mouse for nothing and how the overall video seems to teach nothing. ehehe
I was complaining of you taking long, but i took, 14 minutes xD

My first uploaded video on youtube too. All new stuff for me LOL

The video i made is not "The Right Way" is more like flytrough. I don't use the method i put in the image (Morphs and Manual Unwrap, wich are the only methods for some models). But then, because of you, i discovered PLG_UV. I had heard of it, but never used it. And... its great. The way it scans the mesh and Unwraps stuff, like jaggy cylindrical meshes, its great. Tons of time saved.

So... Thanks :)

Cheers

Youtube (looks and sounds crappy, maybe better to download videofile from mediafire)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eIiQboLUA4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTus8gsVwkE

Videofile
http://www.mediafire.com/?ngwitxmmnqg

[erikals]

heh.. http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif i know.. it sure does take time... http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/aarggggghhhh.gif

i thought you did good, better than me, you were more straight to the point, and i learned quite a lot http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

thinking, looked at a plugin some time back, and it looks like the last example in the last tutorial could use this plugin, seems to make a pretty good UV flow...
http://www.dstorm.co.jp/archives/plugins/UVRoad/doce/index.htm

here's another one, good for roads, cost $10 though...
http://www.mmm.ne.jp/~waken/spread/index_e.html

[probiner]

Didn't know those plugs, thanks.

But the last one's UV it's ok. Since the mesh is actually distorted, the UV gets distorted so the textur fits right. But i get it, there might be situations were you want to map for example a gradient and the seam will show up with that UV.

Reknitter (http://www.flay.com/plugs/downloads/Rekniter.p) allows you to reorder points in a mesh and makes Background to Morph possible.

So this example is for a cilindrical shape, but it could be used for many other distorted shapes :)

Cheers

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s202/animatics/Lightwave/CylindricalShape.png

[erikals]

yes, it's a nice technique, have yet to use it using reknitter, but i'm sure i will soon.
"background to morph" can do magic at times http://www.newtek.com/forums/images/smilies/brians/yoda.gif
reminds me a bit of Proton's "UV unwrapping with Dynamics"
ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/UVDynamics.mov

ey, btw, did you know that you can animate a UV map ? http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85719&page=2

[probiner]

ey, btw, did you know that you can animate a UV map ? page=2[/url]

Shame you didn't put the scene file or a screenshot of the morphs.


http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85719&page=2

Yes, its nice. What about it?

[erikals]

think i did, see page 1...
great for muscle simulation...

edit: you might have to reapply cycler, seems to doesn't save, prob. due a bug

[erikals]

seamless UV texturing trick... http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif
http://www.geocities.com/dave_b10000/index.html

[erikals]

...texturing tutorial rather than than mapping, but felt it sort of belonged here...

UV6 texturing - Seams and symbols
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYNQT2bIWIU

[Matt]

Despite using LW for years, I hardly use UV mapping, except for basic things, mainly because it was a pain (until PLG plugin came along).

One thing that never clicked was _why_ in LW (when using LW UV tools) you needed to unweld points.

I never heard a proper, clear description, only 'you need to do it' type explanations.

But it's just occurred to me while watching these videos, don't laugh, I just never really thought about it!

Unwelding points is the LightWave equivalent of _defining UV seams_ !

Why nobody ever said it like that I'll never know! It all makes sense now! :D

[erikals]

hehe, i know, i had something similar some time back,..
"why doesn't this SubD model get better the more polys i add..."

http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

[probiner]

First Reaction: What is he doing in Photoshop?

Second: Hmm, oohh interesting... Taking a bit long just for this but...

Third: Heck... Let's do something sloppy with this =)


I was a bit more lazy so i could do the whole face faster:
-Select empty space in UV texture. Expand Selection. Convert Selection to Path. Make Text in path =)

[erikals]

that's quite cool,... http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

heh, yeah, it was one of those "it's now or never" tutorials http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Matt]

that's quite cool,... http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

heh, yeah, it was one of those "it's now or never" tutorials http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

Nicking CG Society smilies I see! http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/bouncy.gif

(I really wish we had the bouncy one, I love it!)

[erikals]

hehe... http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/smile.gif he sure got some energy that lill' one... :0

[probiner]

My favourite so far is shrug, as in

http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/shrug.gif I don't remeber what i had for lunch.


http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/shrug.gif Your face looks familiar


http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/shrug.gif You do CG? Oh ok...

[erikals]

really? http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/suspicious.gif not sure,.. http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/suspicious.gif how bout this one? http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/suspicious.gif i suspect somethin'...

i'm just really not sure... http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/suspicious.gif

http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/grin.gif

[erikals]

just found these by Larry (you might have to log in,..)
http://www.vfxcast.com/playlist/uvmapping/

[erikals]

UV plugs, soon to be released,...
http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100892

[erikals]

UV7 texturing - Seams and symbols 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt0TdmcA91Q

[erikals]

sidenote, looks like PLG_UV is faster than Modo UV... cool... \:]

http://www.newtek.com/forums/showpost.php?p=892623&postcount=39

[erikals]

forgot these,...
http://www.stevewarner.com/html/uv_unwrapping.html

[erikals]

////
some PLG UV tutorials, (forgot to link them here)


PLG Make UV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHKjCD3xTTU

PLG Make UV, limitations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E35qOmRBf-c

PLG Make UV, selecting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbPTQ5mopuQ

////

[erikals]

-
Pictrix UV_Creeper (just a link)
http://www.pictrix.jp/?p=3837

-

[lardbros]

Just wondering what the difference is between that tool and UV Spider? Is this one much better?

[erikals]

yep, afaik... :]

[erikals]

Pictrix UV_Creeper (just a link)
http://www.pictrix.jp/?p=3837
-

UV Band Mapper might also be of use...
http://downloads.laffeycomputer.com/bandmapper/

[erikals]

UV mapping a rotated cube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXCbSq4gu_0