This week I’ve been working on the least fun part of the 3D modeling, UV unwrapping. Thankfully Maya has a good set of tools to speed up the process slightly.
Whoever developed the planar map tool at Autodesk has my deepest regards. SO MUCH TIME SAVED.
Now obviously I’m nowhere near done yet, but I like to test my work incrementally to make sure the UV work I am doing in Maya looks good in other environments. I’ll go ahead and make a quick test FBX export of this model and plop it in Marmoset Toolbag.
Marmoset Toolbag 2 (Three is out but I have not purchase it yet) is a nifty piece of software that creates high quality renders. It’s also a great tool for pre-flighting models before importing them into a game engine.
Once I’ve imported the model into Toolbag, I’ll apply a texture with a visible grain, such as Marmoset’s preset rust texture, to see if I need to do additional tweaking to the areas I’ve already UV’d.
Good news! The areas I’ve UV’d, such as the stairs, floor, and foundation, all applied the selected texture evenly and without warping. The areas that are circled in red show areas that I have not UV’d yet. You can see the obvious warping on the roof, and some of the supporting pillars that hold the roof up. The front panel of the building isn’t exactly stretched, but the resolution isn’t matching that of the UV’d portions. Now you understand why Toolbag can be a valuable pre-flight tool.
-Post commandeered by the US Claire Force
C.E. LEWOCZKO 