Maya UV map for multiple textures/faces

[xigaro]

Forgive me if the answer is obvious, I'm very new to all of this!

I have created a simple primitive thing in Maya 2013 and assigned 8 different materials to the faces. Using the FBX converter tool I uploaded my DAE to SL and rezzed the mesh.

My desired effect was to have 8 faces in SL which can hold different textures. It worked! (after 3 hours, hehe)

I set each face's texture to planar mapping but each one needs some crazy texture offsets and texture repeats to look okay.

What I would like is for each face (which is a square) to accept a texture with 1 repeat and no offsets, as a normal SL cube face would.

I am guessing that the crucial step I missed here is UV mapping. I have tinkered with the UV map editor in Maya 2013 and read through the docs and tutorials, but I don't know what I need to achieve.

Do I need one UV map for each material? Or should it be one UV map with all faces/materials taking up 100% of the map, overlapping each other? Or...

If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be most grateful!

[xigaro]

I think it's becoming a bit clearer... I've spent hours messing around with UV maps and texturing in SL!

It looks like any UV map I apply to faces in Maya uses Planar mapping. When I upload mesh and texture it in SL I need to choose planar mapping in the texture dialog, but this changes the "Repeats per face" option to "Repeats per meter" so it doesn't look like I can achieve what I'm after.

If I spend a while setting all the offsets and repeats on each face individually, when I resize the object all the textures go crazy again!

Is that right? Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance

[Chosen Few]

The answer is a lot simpler than you seem to want to think.

Think it through logically for a moment.  If you want any face to display an entire texture, then by definition, that face has to cover the entire texture canvas on the UV map.  If you want six faces to each display entire textures, then all six each need to cover the whole canvas.  All six will simply overlap, so they all cover the same space.

If it takes you more than 30 seconds to acheive this, you're doing it slowly.  Here's how to do it:

1.  Open up the UV Texture editor, and you'll see that Maya's default UV layout for a cube is an upside down T shape, four faces tall, and three faces wide.  Separate it into six individual shells, by selecting the all the interior edges, and cutting them apart (Polygons -> Cut UV Edges).

2.  Now simply select each point, and snap it to a corner of the canvas.  If you want the textures on the faces to be oriented in any certain direction (upside down, right side up, forwards, backwards, etc.), be sure to take this into account when deciding which point to snap to which corner.

That's all there is to it.  Since your six faces have different materials on them, they'll each be able to take different textures in SL.  And since each face occupies the full UV canvas space, each one will display its texture in full.

Do be aware, though, that this will increase the cube's land impact a little.  By cutting the faces apart, you increase the number of UV points for each vertex to 3, instead of just 1 or 2, putting the total number at 24, instead of the default 14.  That will increase the download weight.

If you want, you can skip step 1, and snap the UV points to the canvas corners without first cutting the faces apart.  You just have to be a little more careful this way, so you don't accidentally collapse any of the faces.  You'll sacrifice control over the individual orientation of each face, but that's not really a problem, since you can just rotate the textures in-world, afterward. 

If you don't understand what I mean by that last paragraph, then just do both steps for now.  As you get more experience UV'ing, you'll eventually get it.

[OhMy Shalala]

What if the model ALREADY has facet texture assigned? How to you keep them assigned as it says in the option "upload WITH textures". Does this work or not? As I've not managed to upload any models even when they have textures assigned to their respective facet.

[OhMy Shalala]

Meaning I already have an .obj file with an associated materials file. When you open these in 3ds max it knows what textures belong and how they apply to the model already. You only need to tell 3ds where to retrieve the textures from it's materials list and poof they can be applied. HOWEVER, when I try to export these, must I use MAYA or will 3dsMax work in order to keep the textures and thier positoning/facet information for uploading to SL? Everything I'm trying seems to NOT work heh. I'm sure I'll get it eventually.

 

These suggestions are VERY helpful, Thank you to those of you who try to explain processes that will work.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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OhMy Shalala wrote:

You only need to tell 3ds where to retrieve the textures from it's materials list and poof they can be applied.

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In other words, 3ds max can't find the textures, just like SL can't. Only difference is you can pick the textures on upload in 3ds max.

It doesn't really matter. What's important is your UV mapping and you don't need to upload the textures for that. You can upload them seperately, that's what I always do. If you are having trouble keeping the UV data on export from max/import into SL, the problem could be in the exporter. What version of max and what dae exporter do you use? OpenCollada doesn't work, Autodesk Collada does.