UV Texture Mapping

In this session, we were taught the process of UV mapping. The purpose of this process is to define how a texture is projected onto a polygonal model. A well planned and thought out UV mapping process would mean a texture occupies less space in the system's memory. Whilst there is a tool in Maya to do this automatically (with numerous preference options if a particular requirement must be prioritized), it may be necessary to do the process manually if a certain layout is needed in order to appropriately edit the texture in Photoshop. Regardless, doing the process manually helps us understand how the system works anyway.

Using the turret model we made in our last Maya session, we would manually map the UV texture using Planar Mapping.

My unwrapped UV set.

Unfortunately, I have lost the work I completed in the session. Luckily, I understood the process and have created this quick model and unwrapped it in order to demonstrate my knowledge of UV mapping.

I selected all the X-Axis facing faces (either positively or negatively) and projected their UVs from the X-Axis. You can see the result in the UV texture editor. All the faces facing the X+ direction appear blue in the editor, and all the faces facing the X- direction appear red in the editor. I did the same for the faces facing the Z-Axis and Y-Axis.

If I were to create textures for this model, any texture applied to the 'red' faces would appear inverted, as they are being projected from 'behind' the face. I could either inverse these faces' textures in Photoshop or inverse their UV mapping to fix this.