- Collecting References
- Background Templates and Key Facial Zones
- Step 1. Creating the Initial Design
- Step 2. Dividing the Work Into Zones
- Step 3. Plotting Points in 3D Space with Rail Molds
- Step 4. Developing the Cage Further with Key Facial Zone Object Rails
- Step 5. Modeling Isolated Key Facial Zones
- Step 6. Connecting the Key Facial Zones Together
- Step 7. Creating the UV Map for Painting
- Step 8. Mixing Mediums for Texture Creation
- Step 9. Applying the Fur
- Step 10. Fur Combing
- Step 11. Fur Coloring, Shading, and Shadowing
- Summary
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Step 7. Creating the UV Map for Painting
UV texturing allows the ability to assign certain areas of a texture map to vertex/points that make up a piece of geometry.
I knew that most of the surface area on the geometry would be covered with Worley's Sasquatch (fur shading). I also knew its power and ability to produce some startlingly realistic results. This leaves two surfaces on the head that need to match the realism achievable with Sasquatch: the face and ears.
The relevance behind the checker texture in Figure 8 is a very useful time saving step to test the UV map before creating any textures, it's a flow thing again! More often than not, when a UV map is created and texture applied to a surface, there can be problem areas of pinching and stretching as the texture adheres to the surface shape. Tweaking the UV points can usually eliminate these unwanted factors, but this also generally means going back and adjusting the texture map. This can be time consuming to say the least; applying the checker texture beforehand allows adjusting the UV points before creating the texture. What you are looking for is to have the checks line up horizontally and vertically, as much as possible. This told me the texture would adhere correctly to the surface.
){kind=link}
Figure 8 The head with checker texture applied to face surface.
TIP
Study the surface that you want to create UV's for. Decide from the mapping options available (planar, cylindrical, spherical, etc.) what suits the area and shape of the surface. In Figure 8, the surface does not extend around the entire head so a simple planar operation was more suitable. If the surface did extend around the diameter of the head, then cylindrical would be more suitable.