Texturing & paint effects with Maya

❖ UV editors
The UV Editor lets you view and interactively edit the UV texture coordinates for polygon,
NURBS, and subdivision surfaces within a 2D view. You can access it from either Windows >
Modeling Editors > UV Editor or the UV > UV Editor menu in the Modeling menu set.
You can select, move, scale, and generally modify the UV topology for a surface very much like
you work with other modeling tools within Maya

❖ Brushes
Optimize

Spaces UVs out evenly. For more information, see Unfold UV and Optimize UV Tools.

Unfold

Spreads UVs out around a seam. Particularly useful for symmetrical organic objects. For
more information, see Unfold UV and Optimize UV Tools.

Cut

Separates UVs along edges. For more information, see Cut UV Tool.

Grab

Selects and moves UVs within a brush-based region in the direction that you drag. For
more information, see Grab UV Tool.

Pin

Locks UVs so they cannot be moved by other brush-based operations. For more
information, see Pin UV Tool.

Pinch

Pulls vertices in towards the center of the tool cursor. For more information, see Pinch
UV Tool.

Sew

Welds UVs along edges. For more information, see Sew UV Tool.
Smear

Moves UVs in a direction that is tangent to their original position on the surface in the
direction you drag. For more information, see Smear UV Tool.

Symmetrize

For more information, see Symmetrize UV Tool.

❖ UV Texture Coordinates
Textures are inputs rather than colours.
Start with new arnorld ai surface. Rename it. Add a preset that’s close. Then you make
changes. Add source images. Go to colour. Press the checker button there. It will create a
render node and connect it to the shader. The node you want is a file. Click on file. That’s where
our texture is. In property editor will give all the properties of the file. To load. Click on the folder
next to “image name”. select the image texture you want. Open it. The preview changes to show
it. Assign it to the floor. Press 6 to see texture map.

❖ Fold and Unfolding UVs.

Unfolding a UV mesh refers to the process of cutting a seam in the UV mesh and then unfolding
along that seam.

❖ Transferring UVs
You can map your UVs to a smoothed version of your polygon model, where it may be easier to
get good UVs; for example, you can smooth out wrinkles that cause overlapping UVs. Then you
can use the Transfer Attributes operation to copy the mapped UVs back onto the complex
original model.

❖ Bump and Normal Mapping

Bump maps are grayscale textures you map to objects to create the illusion of surface relief
(elevations and depressions) on an otherwise flat object.

With bump maps, depressions and elevations look real because they don’t alter the geometry of
the surface the way Displacement maps do. Bump maps just change the direction of the surface’s
normals based on the bump map’s Alpha Gain value.

Because bump maps are not true surface relief, they:

• cannot cast or receive shadows
• cannot be seen if you silhouette the mapped object
• take less time to render than displacement maps
Normal mapping : A type of bump mapping that makes use of surface normals
❖ Painting on 3D Objects
In general, Automatic Mapping produces UVs that can be used for painting

In the Rendering menu set, select Texturing > 3D Paint Tool.

You can paint textures with the 3D Paint Tool using two types of brushes: Artisan brushes and
Paint Effects brushes. You can paint renderable attributes such as color, bump, transparency, and
specular color on polygons, NURBS, or subdivision surfaces. You can also paint on file textures
created outside the 3D Paint Tool.

Artisan brushes use grayscale images to define the brush profile (or shape). You can select from
40 predefined brush shapes, or you can create your own shapes using any image format
supported by Maya. You can paint, erase and clone textures using Artisan brushes. See also
Artisan.

Paint Effects brushes are defined by specific combinations of attribute settings and can be simple
(like pen, pastel, oil paint, and pencil brushes) or they can simulate growth to get their look (like
flowers, feathers, hair, and fire brushes). You can select the default Paint, Smear, or Blur brush
to paint with, or you can select any preset brush from Content Browser or your shelves.

❖ Brush Tubes

❖ Arnold martials
Arnold editor is more photo realistic materials. The default photo realistic renderer in maya.

Create: click on Arnold. Filter and Show only Arnold surfaces: click ai standard surface.
This has more options.
Properties, Rename it. It has presets. Click on presets. Select from the drop down box. It will
show a preview of how its gonna look on the material editor. Change the colour, change the
roughness etc.] next assign the material. Select the object. Right click the material you made.
Assign the material to the selection.
❖ Surface

❖ Displacement
Displacement maps are grayscale textures you map to objects to create true surface relief
(elevations and depressions) on an otherwise flat object.

With Displacement maps, depressions and elevations become part of the geometry of the object,
changing the topology, unlike Bump maps that only create the illusion of surface relief.

Displacement maps move an object’s vertices. By default, the height of the displacement is
determined by the Alpha Gain value in the displacement map’s Attribute Editor. If you turn on
Alpha is Luminance, the height result is based on the intensity of the pixels instead.

Use displacement maps to create shallow or deep surface relief. For example, you can create
embossing, mountain peaks and valleys, spikes, and so on.

❖ UV Editor Normal based

Creates a planar UV projection based on the average vector of the face normals in the active
selection.

Use these options to set what happens when you select UV > Normal-Based.

Settings include: Keep Ratio. Insert projection before deformers. UV set

❖ Camera based

❖ Automatic

❖ Best plane

❖ Planer mapping

❖ Cylindrical mapping

❖ Cut and sew

The 3D Cut and Sew UV Tool allows you to create or stitch seams on UV shells right in the
viewport, instead of through the UV Editor. For more information on cutting and sewing edges,
see Separate and attach UVs.
Use these options to set what happens when you select UV > 3D Cut and Sew UV Tool > .

Brush
Steady Stroke
Activating this automatically smooths out your mouse strokes. Useful if you have an
unsteady hand or when working in tight spaces on the model.
Distance
Determines the width of jitter to smooth out when Steady Stroke is enabled.
Symmetry
Mirrors cut or sew operations across the chosen axis of symmetry.

❖ Transform UV’s
Move, rotate, and scale UVs
You can manually move, scale, or rotate UVs and UV shells in the UV Editor. For example, you
may wish to move individual UVs or entire UV shells to improve their layout, or scale UV shells
to ensure they make optimal use of the 0 to +1 texture space.

Move, rotate, or scale UV positions.

1. Select the UVs you want to reposition.

2. Select the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools from the Toolbox.
Note: Scaling UVs of multiple polygonal objects together in the UV Editor may produce
unexpected results. Work on the UVs of one object at a time.

❖ Straighten UV’s
You will often need to straighten UVs along the same edge loop in order to fix distortions on a
UV map. There are a number of different ways to do this:
Straighten UVs by aligning them
Straighten UVs by adjusting their angles to adjacent UVs
Straighten UVs by matching them to a grid
Straighten a selected edge loop and then unfold around it
Straighten a UV border

❖ Pinning and unpinning

To open the Pin UV Tool, click the icon on the UV Editor toolbar or select Tool > Pin UV
Tool from the UV Editor menus.

The Pin UV Tool locks affected vertices so they cannot be modified. By default, pinned UVs
appear blue. Press Ctrl to unfreeze frozen UVs.

The following options appear in the Tool Settings window when you select Tool > Pin UV Tool
> .

Unpin All
Removes all the pinning on the UV shell.
Invert Pin
Reverses the pinned and unpinned parts of the UV shell.

❖ Shadow and Shading Effects

This section describes extensions that control different shadow effects (e.g., blur, knockout).
shadowColor property Specifies the color of shadow
shadowAlpha property Controls the alpha transparency value for the shadow color.
shadowAngle property Controls the angle of the shadow, similar to DropShadowFilter.
shadowDistance property Controls the blur radii of the shadow.
shadowStrength property Controls the blur strength of the shadow.

❖ Converting Strokes to Geometry

You can convert Paint Effects strokes to polygonal meshes, including construction history, using
Modify > Convert > Paint Effects to Polygons. You can edit brush attributes and see the effect
on the output mesh. Shaders that closely match the look of the Paint Effects render are
automatically generated and assigned to the resulting meshes

You can convert Paint Effects strokes to NURBS using Modify > Convert > Paint Effects to
NURBS. If you select the Options box ( ) in the process, you can choose to hide the strokes.
The benefit of converting Paint Effects to NURBS is that you can work the Paint Effects objects
as geometry.

You can convert Paint Effects strokes to curves using Modify > Convert > Paint Effects to
Curves. If you select the Options box ( ) in the process, you can choose to hide the strokes.
The benefits of converting Paint Effects to curves is you can use the resulting curves for
modeling, and you can render the curves in other renderers

❖ Hypergraph

Hypershade:
Creating and applying material.
Windows> rendering editors> hypershade
Central working area to build shading networks to add materials. By creating and connecting
different nodes such as textures materials and light

Sections: panels

Top: Browser. Lists the materials textures and lights. Loggle to move between different tyoes

Top right: material browser. Click on a material and it will give you a preview of what that
material looks like. By default its on a “shader ball” you can change it to a cloth, teapot, sphere
etc.

Left ; create tab: different nodes to create and use to build the materials

Middle space: work area . where you see all the nodes. How they are connected make new
connections etc. visually here.

Bottom right: property editor. Properties of whatever you have selected in the hypershade. Edit.

Bottom left: bins: organize and check the shading nodes. Sort them into different bins.

You can also open and add one more panel to it. Like a copy of your view port.
Window. Open view port.

If you mistakenly close also open your panel here.

To create a material:
Lambert 1 is default material of everything.

From create panel on left. Press lambert. New lambert is created up there on the
browser.lambert 2. We will see the nodes that make up the lambert in the work space. You can
adjust the properties on the right.

Rename it. Call it. Floor? Change the colour etc using the slider. Transparency, colour swatch.
Etc.
To apply it, you can open your view port.
Click with the middle mouse button on the lambert floor . then drop it to the floor .

Importance of texturing before the final render:

Texturing is really the act of controlling the appearance of the surface of your model. You can
control things like color, shininess, transparency, reflectivity, and even make the surface look
rougher or smoother

Environment textures:
I have a scene and I have a lot of non-uniform models using nurbs modeling. Doesn’t have a
shape or structure. We have to give a structure.
After you select the scene you can add material. Add colour, transparency, bumping.
Ambiencing etc.
Texturing means you don’t want to keep a texture.

Envormoent: sky,
Explain
1. .
Hypershade
The Hypershade is an artist-friendly and intuitive tool that allows you to easily build and edit
materials and visualize the results in real-time in Viewport
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-
explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-447C9ADA-A285-483E-A93D-
6ED1B2792D5F-htm.html
Creating and applying material.
Windows> rendering editors> hypershade
Central working area to build shading networks to add materials. By creating and connecting
different nodes such as textures materials and light.
Its got panels like the
Top: Browser
Top right: material browser.
Left ; create tab:
Middle space: work area .
Bottom right: property editor.
Bottom left: bins

ai standard surface
Arnold editor is more photo realistic materials. The default photo realistic renderer in maya.
Create: click on Arnold. Filter and Show only Arnold surfaces: click ai standard surface.
This has more options.
It has presets. Click on presets. Select from the dropdown box.

2.
Texture nodes are a type of render node that, when mapped to the material of an object, let you
define how the object’s surface appears when rendered.

2D textures
2D textures wrap around an object, like gift wrapping, or stick to a flat surface, like wallpaper.
2D textures available in the Create Render Node window include: Bulge, File, Grid, etc.

Eg checker Represents a checkerboard pattern of 2 colours. Find this texture in the Create tab

3D textures
3D textures project through objects, like veins in marble or wood.

With a 3D texture, objects appear to be carved out of a substance, such as rock or wood. You can
scale, rotate and move 3D textures interactively in a scene view to achieve the desired results.

Use this to make a cloud,leather, snow, granite etc.

Material viewer
Render your shading network in real-time in the Hypershade Material Viewer
The Material Viewer allows for easy visualization of sub-networks and unconnected networks,
and therefore optimizes your compositing and shader development workflows.
Preview your textures, bump maps, and shaders in the Material Viewer.

vs property editor.
Edit your materials using the Property Editor where only commonly used attributes are shown.
View your attributes in the Hypershade Property Editor
View your shading node attributes in the Property Editor in a template view that provides an
optimized layout of the most commonly used attributes for each shading node.
Environment textures and its options
Environment textures are commonly used either as backgrounds for objects in your scene or as
reflection maps.
All scenes must have an environment. By default, the environment is black (giving the
appearance of no environment)

The environment defines the appearance of your scene’s surroundings. It can be a simple
colored background or a complex three-dimensional texture. The environment also defines
global lighting, shader glow, and fog for your scene.

Bring a feel like its an environment. Bring a feel of daylight. Or night feel. Like an interior or
exterior.
Techniques HDRI mapping is one of the techniques used to keep environment mapping.

Image based lighting offers additional realism through the use of high dynamic range images
(HDRI) as environment maps, and the treatment of that environment map as a source of light,
not just a reflection map
HDRI images are environment maps, and may be spherical or cube environment maps

Environment textures simulate three-dimensional spaces. They can do this by using a series of
image files such as Ball, Cube, or Sphere textures; or by using a computer graphic procedure
such as Chrome or Sky texture.

Environment texture types

There are several different types of environment textures: ball, chrome, cube, sky, and sphere.

The Sky texture simulates a planetary environment viewed from the surface of a planet.

Importance of texturing.
a texture is any kind of surface detail, both visual and tactile. In Maya, you create surface detail
with textures connected to the material of objects as texture maps. Materials define the basic
substance of an object, and textures add detail.
Factors beyond basic color, transparency, and shine. Reflections,

Texture nodes are one type of render node that, when mapped to the material of an object, let
you define how the surface of an object looks when rendered.
Texture nodes are procedural textures generated by Maya or bitmap images imported into
Maya.
that you can use as texture maps for material attributes. Texture maps on various attributes
such as color, bump, and specularity affect the appearance of the material

To apply a texture to an object, you map the texture to an attribute on the object's material.

You can have 2D , 3D, enviorment and layer textures. You can even have ambience textures.
We add the texture to the model so that the Final render will look more realistic.
Add 2d or 3d textures.
Its one of the important To bring more realistic look or appearance after you add the lights. It will
highlight more and more in the scene.
After you select the scene you can add material. Add colour, transparency, bumping.
Ambiencing etc.
Texturing means you don’t want to keep a colour.

Various types of paint effects

Paint Effects is a component of Maya used to quickly and easily paint brush strokes and particle
effects on a 2D canvas or on or between 3D geometry.

You can use Paint Effects as a traditional paint program to paint images on a canvas, or to paint
repeatable textures that you can apply to geometry in your scenes.

you can paint entire particle effects on your canvas or scene with a single brush stroke.

Choose from one of the many preset brushes and paint realistic effects like plants, hair, fire,
feathers, oil paints, pastels, and watercolors, or blend the preset brushes to create custom
effects. Create your own brushes by setting shading, illumination, shadow, glow, tube, gap, and
flow animation attributes or by modifying the attributes for the preset brushes.

The Paint Effects Tool works like a paintbrush. When you drag with the Paint Effects Tool, you
create a stroke

Brushes
. When you paint a stroke, Paint Effects creates a new brush,

Strokes
A Paint Effects stroke is a curve attached to a hidden underlying NURBS curve (or curves).

Types of strokes

There are two basic kinds of strokes: simple strokes and strokes that simulate growth.

On simple strokes, paint is applied directly along the stroke path.

Strokes with tubes simulate organic growth. As you paint, tubes sprout from the stroke path, like
plants growing from a path of seeds. The tubes grow, split, and expand along the path. Tubes
can grow into an almost infinite variety of shapes and forms (for example, plants, hair, fire, and
water) depending on the attributes you set for the stroke.

On the Maya interface, just below the menu sets, on the left side of the window, click the menu
of items to modify the shelf > Load Shelf.
In the Load Shelf dialog, select shelf_PaintEffects.mel and click Open.

SPHERICAL MAPPING.
a) Spherical mapping create UVs using a projection that is based on a spherical shape
wrapped around the mesh. This projection is best for shapes which can be completely
enclosed and visible within a sphere, without projecting or hollow parts.
To create UVs using a spherical mapping technique

PLANNER MAPPING

b) Planar mapping projects UVs onto a mesh through a plane. This projection is best for
objects that are relatively flat, or at least are completely visible from one camera angle.

The Best Plane Texturing Tool assigns UVs to the faces you select based on a plane
computed from vertices you specify.

You can select the faces you want to map before you choose the Best Plane Texturing
tool, or you can choose the tool and then click each face you want to map.

CYLINDRICAL MAPPING

Cylindrical mapping creates UVs for an object based on a cylindrical projection shape
that gets wrapped around the mesh. This projection is best for shapes which can be
completely enclosed and visible within a cylinder, without projecting or hollow parts.

AUTOMATIC MAPPING

Automatic mapping creates UVs for a polygon mesh by attempting to find the best UV
placement by simultaneously projecting from multiple planes. This method of UV
mapping is useful on more complex shapes where the basic planar, cylindrical, or
spherical projections do not produce UVs that are useful, especially on components that
project outwards or are hollow in nature. Automatic mapping creates several UV map
pieces or shells in texture space
UV MAPPING TOOLS IN MAYA
UVs (pronounced U-VEEZ) are two-dimensional texture coordinates that reside with the vertex
component information for polygonal and subdivision surface meshes.

UVs exist to define a two-dimensional texture coordinate system, called UV texture space

You can select, move, scale, and generally modify the UV topology for a surface very much like
you work with other modeling tools within Maya. You can also view the image associated with
the assigned texture map as a backdrop within the UV Editor and modify the UV layout to match
as required.
All major UV tasks are accessible either via the UV Editor's toolbar and menus, or from the
Modeling menu set's UV menu.

UV Tool buttons
UV Lattice Tool The UV Lattice Tool manipulates the
layout of UVs as a group by letting you
create a lattice around the UVs for
deformation purposes. See Modify UVs
using the UV Lattice Tool.
Move UV Shell Tool The Move UV Shell Tool lets you select
and reposition a UV shell by selecting a
single UV on the shell. You can
automatically prevent the repositioned
UV shell from overlapping other UV
shells in the 2D view.
Select Shortest Edge The Select Shortest Edge Path Tool lets
Path Tool you select a path of edges between two
vertices on a surface mesh. It determines
the most direct path between any two
selection points and selects the polygon
edges in between. See Select a path of
edges between two vertices.
Tweak UV Tool The Tweak UV Tool lets you freely
transform components in the UV Editor.
See Tweak UVs.
Unfold UV Tool Unwraps the UV mesh using the
Unfold3D method.
Cut UV Tool Splits UVs along edges.
 Grab UV Tool Selects and moves UVs based on the
distance and the direction you drag.
Useful for making subtle adjustments.
Pinch UV Tool Pulls vertices in towards the center of the
tool cursor. Useful for more sharply
defining an existing crease.
Optimize UV Tool Untangle and even out spacing between
UV coordinates on a shell.
Sew UV Tool Welds UVs along the seams where you
drag.
Pin UV Tool Locks affected UVs so they cannot be
modified. By default, pinned UVs appear
blue.
Smear UV Tool Moves UVs in a direction that is tangent
to their original position on the surface in
the direction you stroke.

UV orientation buttons
These items let you edit the orientation and rotation of UVs.

Flip U Flips the positions of the selected UVs in

the U direction. Shortcut for UV > Flip.
Flip V Flips the positions of the selected UVs in
the V direction. Shortcut for UV > Flip.
Rotate UVs Rotates the positions of the selected UVs
counterclockwise by 45 degrees in a counterclockwise
direction. Shortcut for UV > Rotate.
Rotate UVs clockwise Rotates the positions of the selected UVs
by 45 degrees in a clockwise direction.
Shortcut for UV > Rotate.

UV layout buttons
Layout Attempts to arrange the UVs into a
cleaner layout, based on the settings in the
Layout UVs option box. Shortcut for UV
> Layout.
Grid UVs Moves every selected UV to its nearest
grid intersection in texture space. Shortcut
for UV > Grid.
 To change the grid, right-click the View
Grid button on the toolbar.
Unfold Unwraps the selected UV mesh while
attempting to ensure that the UVs do not
overlap. Shortcut for UV > Unfold.
Select Faces Selects any UV faces connected to the
currently selected UVs.

UV alignment buttons
Align Min U Aligns the positions of the selected UVs
to the minimum U value. Shortcut for UV
> Align.
Align Max U Aligns the positions of the selected UVs
to the maximum U value. Shortcut for UV
> Align.
Align Min V Aligns the positions of the selected UVs
to the minimum V value. Shortcut for UV
> Align.
Align Max V Aligns the positions of the selected UVs
to the maximum V value. Shortcut for UV
> Align.