Maya UV Unwrapping a Digital Dinosaur in 2 hours

Explore Maya Powerful UV Unwrap Tools & Time-Saver Unwrapping Techniques to Unwrap this 5-Tonne-Jurassic Creature

Created byIsaac Yap

Last updated 7/2013

English

What you'll learn

Course Goal: By the end of the course, you will be able to UV Unwrap a 3D dinosaur
Course Objectives: In this course, you will learn Maya UV Unwrapping Tools & UV Unwarp Techniques.

Course content

7 sections • 11 lectures • 2h 26m total length

Note: Please download this file for your own hands on practise0:08
A Big Welcome, my dear Learners,
Thanks for signing up this course.
First of all, I have prepared the Maya Project files for you to download.

What is the purpose of the Maya files?
They are meant to help you to start from any stages you preferred. Please feel free to download this Maya Project files.

Introduce the UV Concept30:11
What is this lesson about?
This lesson covers the basic concept of UV unwrap in a 3D animation production pipeline.

What are the steps of unwrapping UV of an object in Autodesk Maya?
01) Layout the panel in 2 panes side by side. Left panel be the perspective view. Right panel be UV Texture Editor.
02) Select faces and apply planar camera projection to unwrap the UV of these faces.Do this for all faces of the object.
03) Transform the unwrapped UVs to maximise the UV space provided.
04) Create a UV snapshot
05) Import it into a paint program such as Adobe Photoshop to do the texture work.

Guidelines for good UV Unwrap:
01) Minimise distortion of UVs. e.g. an image of a circle should end up looking circular, not oval
02) Keep the seam (the edge of 2 adjacent UV shells) in a less noticeable area e.g. seam for the head should be under the jaw. armpit etc
03) Minimise the number of UV shells
04) UV shells should be in their correct size.

UV Unwrap the Leg29:59
What is this lesson about?
This lesson covers UV unwrap of the leg.

What are the steps ?
01) Isolate only the leg portion
02) Identify the seams of the leg portion
03) Cut the UVs of these seams
04) Identify the 2 UVs at the mid point of the leg
05) Translate the 2 UVs apart
06) Unfold the UVs
UV Unwrap the Foot18:40
What is this lesson about?
This lesson covers UV unwrap of the foot.

What are the steps ?
01) Isolate only the foot portion
02) Identify the seams of one of the toe
03) Cut the UVs of these seams
04) Identify the 2 UVs at the mid point of the toe
05) Translate the 2 UVs apart
06) Unfold the UVs
07) Follow the above instruction to unwrap the UVs for 2 other toes
UV Unwrap the Arm12:50
What is this lesson about?
This lesson covers UV unwrap of the arm.

What are the steps ?
01) Isolate only the arm portion
02) Identify the seams of the arm
03) Cut the UVs of these seams
04) Identify the 2 UVs at the mid point of the arm
05) Translate the 2 UVs apart
06) Unfold the UVs
07) Identify the seams of one of the finger
08) Cut the UVs of these seams
09) Identify the 2 UVs at the mid point of the finger
10) Translate the 2 UVs apart
11) Unfold the UVs
12) Follow the steps above to unwrap the other finger
UV Unwrap the Body & the Tail5:38
What is this lesson about?
This lesson covers UV unwrap of the body to tail.

What are the steps ?
01) Isolate only the body to tail portion
02) Identify the 2 UVs at the mid point of the body to tail
03) Translate the 2 UVs apart
04) Unfold the UVs
UV Unwrap the Head15:39
What is this lesson about?
This lesson covers UV unwrap of the head.

What are the steps ?
01) Identify the seams of the head that divides the upper & lower jaws
02) Cut UVs of these seams
03) UV planar project a side view of the entire head
04) For the upper jaw, identify a line of UVs that divides the head into two symmetrical halves
05) Cut these UVs
06) Translate the UVs into a vertical line in UV texture editor
07) Pin these UVs and Unfold the rest of the UVs
08) For inner mouth portion, planar project the UVs
09) For the lower jaw, identify a line of UVs that divides the jaw into two symmetrical halves
10) Cut these UVs
11) Select 2 overlapping UVs somewhere at the midpoint of this line of UVs
12) Translate these 2 UVs apart
13) Unfold the UVs of the entire lower jaw

Bonus Video: Another Way of UV Unwrap17:49
What is this lesson about?
This lesson covers another way of UV unwrap without separating dinosaur into parts

What are the steps ?
01) Identify the seams of that particular portion e.g. leg
02) Cut the UVs of the seams of that portion
03) Identify the 2 UVs at the mid point of the portion
04) Translate the 2 UVs apart in UV texture editor
05) Unfold the UVs
06) Apply all the UV unwrapping techniques covered from lecture 4 to 9 to unwrap all UVs

What is the advantage or disadvantage of this approach?
The advantage is that no time is spent on separating the parts. It also has only one seam running along on the underside of the body to the tail tip.
The disadvantage is that time spent on UV unwrap both symmetrical halves.

Requirements

Students need to download a free learning copy of Autodesk Maya from http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center
Students can also download a free trial copy of Autodesk Maya from http://usa.autodesk.com/maya/trial/
Students can download and make use of my pre-prepared Maya work files to head start from any one of my lessons

Description

What is the course about?

This exciting Maya Tutorials for Beginners course is about learning the UV Unwrapping Tools in Autodesk Maya particularly in organic models such as humans, creatures, fantasy characters etc.

What kind of learning materials are included?

1. A series of video tutorials.

2. A downloadable ZIP file that contains a Maya project file that consists of the scene files and a huge checker bitmap.

How long to complete these Maya tutorials for beginners?

More than 2 hours to view the video tutorials and to UV unwrap the 3D model.

How is the course structured?

It is mainly a hands-on learning experience whereby you UV unwrap the dinosaur while viewing the videos. The series of video tutorials flows in an orderly manner to lead you from basic concept of UV to actually UV unwrapping a digital dinosaur. You can jump start to your preferred UV unwrapping stage at any time. What you need to do is to simply make use of that particular Maya scene files to work on.

Lastly, have a wonderful JuRaSsic UV Unwrapping experience!

Take this Maya Tutorials for Beginners course and learn how to make digital dinosaur in 2 hours using UV Unwrapping Tools in Autodesk!

Who this course is for:

Students who have some basic understanding of Autodesk Maya and is interested in UV Unwrapping Technique for an organic 3D model

Maya UV Unwrapping a Digital Dinosaur in 2 hours

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Preparation for the lesson1 lecture • 1min

The Concept of UV Unwrap 1 lecture • 30min

The Preparation before UV Unwrap1 lecture • 6min

The UV Unwrap5 lectures • 1hr 23min

Wrapping up after UV Unwrap 1 lecture • 9min

BONUS : Alternate UV Unwrap Technique1 lecture • 18min

Conclusion1 lecture • 1min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: