Advice on UV Maps on Texture Seams?

[Deleted4363562User]

I've been working on updating my mod Vault 111 Overseer Armor with a custom modeled jacket.

 

Here's what I have so far. Nightasy already pointed out that I have to redo the topology under the arm pits. But while I am trying to figure that out, I wanted to learn how to minimize or blend the texture seams. Any other advice is welcome.

 

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i352/alloutwillie/Mod%20Ideas/3.jpg

 

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i352/alloutwillie/Mod%20Ideas/2.jpg

 

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i352/alloutwillie/Mod%20Ideas/1.jpg

[Elianora]

One issue is the grunge on the texture. If the texture is not seamless, it wlll look pretty bad.

[dazzerfong]

If you apply grunge, make sure you mask away the grunge near the seam if you're using something like Photoshop or GIMP to paint on. I know Max supports painting in 3D, so if you could do that, that function doesn't care about seams.

[Deleted4363562User]

Thanks for the replies, Eli and dazzerfong.

 

The base texture is seamless, but I used photoshop's match color tool to match the color to another armor. This made the faded highlights, which I really like. I'm not sure how I can fix the seams as such. I am aware that some form of texturing can be done in 3ds max and maya, but I am not familiar with the process. I guess I'll need to research that.

[jeffglobal]

Upload the maya.ma pls. Me little brain has already solved ur problem, but won't tell me yet. Maybe if I play with it, it will let me in on the secret. I saw this yesterday, and me brain wouldn't let me respond, I thought I'd be able to figure it out consciously, but did not. I have an idiot savant ability to count edges (not a gift) and there's something about the edges that's not optimal considering the yellow/gold patches and your chosen seams...again, me brain thinks it's funny not to inform me about the solution.

 

One thing I can see at this time is to be careful to keep uv islands that share an edge the same size, i.e., don't scale them differently to shove the uv's into the 0-1 space, that will enhance the seams ability to be seen. The others suggestions about the grunge, or the way you went about color correcting in PS will also enhance the seams being seen but, if you use a procedural texture in Maya, you will be able to do what you want, eliminating the need to consider the seam at all...at least with the 3d noise/textures, they don't even consider seams in their calculations.

 

Hey I added a solution and the forum didn't update:

 

Go into the hypershade in Maya: Choose your blue blinn uniform color. Add a 3d noise or two by selecting faces of the yellow thingies and inverting. Now, combining hypershade nodes requires another node, I forgot it's name, but it works like PS layers, except the way it layers textures is left is on top and going right is going under the layer to it's left. The 3d noise maps are uv island invariant, so they will not even look at the seams when they calculate their functions, you adjust them with this cube helper object. Now I have to rewatch the Maya shading videos again to find that node name...

 

Ok, there are two nodes that you can use, but with 3d noise you cannot use one in this case. The Layered Texture node, cannot be used in this case, you have to use the Layered Shader node but, bizarrely, you have to adjust in a drop down menu (compositing flag) and select layered texture for it to work (yup, they named something layered texture in the layered shader node).

Edited March 15, 2016 by jeffglobal

[Deleted4363562User]

Upload the maya.ma pls. Me little brain has already solved ur problem, but won't tell me yet. Maybe if I play with it, it will let me in on the secret. I saw this yesterday, and me brain wouldn't let me respond, I thought I'd be able to figure it out consciously, but did not. I have an idiot savant ability to count edges (not a gift) and there's something about the edges that's not optimal considering the yellow/gold patches and your chosen seams...again, me brain thinks it's funny not to inform me about the solution.

 

One thing I can see at this time is to be careful to keep uv islands that share an edge the same size, i.e., don't scale them differently to shove the uv's into the 0-1 space, that will enhance the seams ability to be seen. The others suggestions about the grunge, or the way you went about color correcting in PS will also enhance the seams being seen but, if you use a procedural texture in Maya, you will be able to do what you want, eliminating the need to consider the seam at all...at least with the 3d noise/textures, they don't even consider seams in their calculations.

 

Hey I added a solution and the forum didn't update:

 

Go into the hypershade in Maya: Choose your blue blinn uniform color. Add a 3d noise or two by selecting faces of the yellow thingies and inverting. Now, combining hypershade nodes requires another node, I forgot it's name, but it works like PS layers, except the way it layers textures is left is on top and going right is going under the layer to it's left. The 3d noise maps are uv island invariant, so they will not even look at the seams when they calculate their functions, you adjust them with this cube helper object. Now I have to rewatch the Maya shading videos again to find that node name...

 

Ok, there are two nodes that you can use, but with 3d noise you cannot use one in this case. The Layered Texture node, cannot be used in this case, you have to use the Layered Shader node but, bizarrely, you have to adjust in a drop down menu (compositing flag) and select layered texture for it to work (yup, they named something layered texture in the layered shader node).

 

 

Hey, thanks. Is there a video or tutorial explaining texturing in Maya? I don't understand a large portion of what you said.

 

And do you still want me to pass you the Maya.mb?

[jeffglobal]

[Edit²] Idk, but on the Autodesk Maya Youtube channel, they have seams really bad too:

You may be asking for something not possible with Maya itself, but Idk, I haven't tried yet. It's only intermediate skill level.

 

------------------------------------------------------

Oh boy, I was gonna say, you might as well just use the Mental Ray mia_material_x_passes, but now, hmmm.

 

Idk, I think if you just use youtube, you have to learn things one piece at a time. It's good when I go, oh fk, wtf is that. Then I youtube it, watch, and say, oh, that ain't so bad. Either way, sometimes that can be better because you get multiple passes with ppl that consider or show slightly different things that all usually help. Otherwise, somehow become a college student, DON'T JUST PROTEST the MAN, and get total access to Pluralsight or something like that.

 

On the otherhand, check the Autodesk channel, and other channels on Youtube and there should be good overall tutorials for each subject. Intros are easy to find. How to do it professionally is HARD. Learn how to use mental ray, it's a pain in the butt, if you're not shown how to use the viewport, render, and camera sets. Then you can use cool materials too.

 

First thing is:

1. Shader Network: that's the hypershade group using nodes that you place the transform, texture, and material nodes leading to a Shader Group (output node) for each mesh (object) in the scene that has the same material applied.
2. Transform: That's just a node that helps you place...move, rotate, scale... a texture and/or material onto an object in the scene
3. Texture: That's the way the surface is deformed, like if you were gonna touch it. So a bump map of any type is a texture. Displacement maps change geometry, we don't need that here, so don't worry. Cloth fibers as a bump or normal map are a texture, pink is a material
4. Material: That's the diffuse (color) and how it's acted on by the reflections, bump, gloss, etc.
5. Shader Group: It's the node that tells Maya how to add shadows, ray tracing and how the material works in the overall scene. (Yet to verify this one, cause there's advertisements for SG ppl for game engines and Idk what they really mean, and supposibly it's highly technical but, in Maya it's the output node.) I don't know yet how to output a SG to a texture set yet, but it shouldn't be too bad. It's mostly because I've been learning other stuff. [Edit] Super easy to export textures, just "test texture" in a right click over material

You should start to use the mia_material_x_passes though. It just means Mia: Mental Ray company name before being bought, material: material, x_passes are so if you need to, you can render just reflection or shadow passes, which is cool, because all the really good cgi guys, even in Marmoset and Keyshot, don't compose their final output in them, but put together multiple passes from Marm and Keyshot and tweek in it in Photoshop. Those guys are REALLY good with PS too. mofos.

 

I'll take an mb too, but I think the standard now is using ma files, but Idk y, I just remember it from a video.

 

[Edit] uh oh, I hope I didn't save over a later post...been watching too much Maya mental ray, since I'm learning VRay...

 

You should learn Mental Ray's mila_material if you're gonna try to learn the mia_material_x_passes.

The reason for the ma save instead of binary is because supposibly, you can fix things if the file is incompatible or messed up in the header file that's readable.

Edited March 16, 2016 by jeffglobal