Texture Preparation - Game Character Development with Maya - page 474

FIGURE 8.33 Apply cylindrical mapping to her upper arm.
1. Select the faces of the upper arm ( Figure 8.33b ).
2. Go to Edit Polygons > Texture > Cylindrical Mapping, to apply the mapping to the
selected faces.
You are now presented with the projection manipulator; you can see it in Figure 8.33c .
This represents how the mapping is being applied to the geometry and, like any other ma-
nipulator in Maya, you can adjust it to better suit your needs:
The small light-blue squares in the corners manipulate the projection's height and
horizontal sweep.
The horizontal sweep is the amount by which the projection wraps around an ob-
ject. The default amount is 1.8, which is 180 degrees and only covers half the ob-
ject. This doesn't mean, however, that only half of the object is mapped; it merely
alters the aspect ratio of the UV placement. You can edit the horizontal sweep dir-
ectly by moving the red squares on either side of the manipulator.
The green squares adjust the height of the mapping, and the light-blue flat square
in the center adjusts its overall scale.
The last, larger cyan cube, which exists on the edge of the projection, adjusts its
rotation around the object.
These handles are all good for adjusting the projection locally—but what if you need to
move it globally? You should see a red T icon in the bottom-left corner of the projection
manipulator. Selecting this will toggle between the projection's default manipulator and
Maya's standard Translate/Rotate/Scale manipulator ( Figure 8.33d ).
We now need to adjust the cylinder's manipulator so that it fits this portion of her arm.
3. Start by using the red cubes to adjust the horizontal sweep, making the projection
spread around to the back of the arm.
4. Click the T icon to switch to Maya's default manipulator and use this to adjust the
cylinder's rotation so it matches the orientation of the upper arm ( Figure 8.33e ) .
5. Now you can either use the current Scale manipulator, or click the T icon again to
return to the projection manipulator and adjust the scale to envelop the arm.
6. With everything still selected, go to Window > UV Texture Editor.
The UV Texture Editor ( Figure 8.34 ) shows how the UVs of the currently selected object
are laid out. What you see is the upper arm flattened out, as if you have peeled the skin off
and laid it out flat—in other words, “unwrapped.” Here is where we will manipulate the