Texture Painting - Game Character Development with Maya - page 568

10. Go back to the view panel, and you will see that the hair now has transparency
( Figure 9.32 , left).
FIGURE 9.32 After applying the alpha channel, fill in any gaps in the hair geometry.
Note
With the alpha map applied to the hair, you may experience some display
problems. The lower layers of hair may pop through the outer one, as you
can see on the right side of her hair in Figure 9.32 . This is mainly due to
the hair geometry's being separate from the rest of the image; combining
them will reduce the problem. This issue is a display problem within
Maya and not indicative of transparency errors in the alpha map.
11. All that is left to do is adjust the vertices on the separate strands of hair, thickening
them and widening them to fill in any large gaps in the hair ( Figure 9.32 , right).
The hair is now complete and ready. Next we will work on the alpha map for the eyes.
Preparing the Eyes' Alpha Map
At present, the eyes don't look real; they have no depth, mainly due to the lack of high-
lights. Using the alpha map created for Kila's hair, we can add these highlights as well as
a slight shadow to the whites of the eyes. First, you'll prepare the eyes to receive these de-
tails.
1. In Maya, hide everything except for the eye geometry ( Figure 9.33a ) .