A UV is an overlay that goes on top of your 3D models. The term UV comes from the fact that those are the axis the textures fall under; X, Y and Z were already taken. They're typically applied on top of unfolded versions of models, making them as flat as possible to easily lay out textures.
(The left shows basic 3D shapes & models, the right shows the rest of the scene with UVs on top - credit: Pixar Animation Studios, The Science Behind Pixar)
Our first UV task was to take the net of a C-3PO's cereal box and try to map the net of a cuboid onto it.
(C-3PO's, a legitimate cereal from the 70s, based on Star Wars - credit: Kellogg's)
We were introduced to a new workspace layout for this task, designed exactly for UV application; the UV Editor. It creates a splitscreen window; one screen showing your whole model, the other showing the selected model's flat net. From there, you can take faces and put them on top of imported graphics.
(The UV Editor being used on a model of a head)
We learnt how to split edges too. For 3D shapes, every two consecutive faces share at least one edge. This is an issue here because trying to move one face will also cause any faces it's connected to to alter itself too. Because of this, we can split edges apart, and have it so moving one face doesn't affect it's other connected faces.
Once I had 6 individually moving faces, I moved them around to the right place. Once on the right face corresponding to the cereal box, I used a UV Vertex manipulation tool to resize each one from being a perfect square into some form of rectangle.
Once the cereal box was all lined up, it looked good! With our completed nets, we learned how to export our nets as templates, and were given the chance to mess about in Photoshop and create our own cereal brand! I wanted to have some fun with it, so I came up with a cereal called "Memers"; a cereal where the box is just covered in memes and jokes.
After the cereal boxes were done, we moved onto "the bird". The bird was essentially a task to demonstrate how to split, unfold and individually texture parts of an already completed 3D model.
For this, we had to split the model of the bird given to us. Keeping the UV view and model view, the faces needed for one section ALL had to be selected. Then by selecting the "Camera View" button, the UV Editor window laid out the net of what was selected, as best it can.
When you just do that one step, you're still left with a 3D, somewhat enclosed model. So from here, we had to split the component even further, by the seams. Thinking as if it was a stuffed animal of sorts, we made seam lines where two flat halves would've connected together. There were also adjustments made if necessary; sometimes areas would be red or blue, representing things being too tight or too stretched, respectively. While not necessary to fix, it makes UVs applied look weird so it's best to fix them.
The process was done for the head, beak, body, wings and legs. The most difficult one, by far, was the legs. The pointed claws with tightened points proved a challenge in untightening, and I even reached a stage where one toe tightened where another one stretched. I kept making seam splits until it all worked, somehow.
The final thing we did was add some colour! We used Maya's in built pen tool, found under the Rendering tab.
(My fully coloured bird and a box of Memers)
And that wraps up the final dedicated Maya session! I really enjoyed working on all of this, and unexpectedly so! I was worried that CGI and CG Modelling would be really intricate, and that unless you had years of experience, you would NOT get it. But it was relatively easy to get the hang of, and I really enjoyed it at times! I think CGI is definitely a path to consider going forward, especially with the Mystery Box project looming.
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