Asset Creation: Maya Scenography UV Mapping - Creating Games with Unity and Maya - page 49

Tips and Tricks
Remember to create a new material for each object or groups of objects
(that are going to share the same material). Although all of them will
share the same Checkerboard.psd file as their color texture, we want to be
sure they have their own unique material assigned to them.
Tips and Tricks
A nice thing about using the same checkerboard for all the UV mapping
is that it gives a quick look at how much texture space each object will
have. Knowing this helps show how high fidelity the texture will likely
appear in a game. Notice in Figure 3.15 that objects that are close to the
ground or on the ground have small checkers. This means they have a lot
of texture space, which means there will be a lot of pixels used to describe
this surface. Things that are far away from the player in the game (like the
beams overhead) have larger checks because they won't need quite as
much texture since they won't be subject to quite so close a scrutiny.
Maya's Unfold UV via Smooth UV Tool
Why?
Automatic mapping works great if working with cubes or objects that
are largely cubic in shape. But a scene full of crates makes for a pretty
boring scene, and ultimately more organic shapes become important to
most scenes that have any variation. Maya's Unfold UV tool is a relative
newcomer to the Maya toolset (at least in the configuration it currently
uses). This kind of technique is available with other tools (see the free
and powerful Roadkill http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm ), but
is nice to have available in Maya. In the next few steps we will be looking
at how Unfold works within Maya in a simple shape. However, this tool
is especially powerful for things like faces and other complex organic
shapes, so we will be visiting it again.
Step 20: Assign new material (with checkerboard as the color texture) to
the EntryWay_Earthwall object (if you are building off of the version of the
map downloaded from the site; if you are using your own version assign
the new material to whatever you are using for the big retaining wall). For
a refresher on how to do this, be sure to view steps 4 through 7. Name the
new material EntryWay_EarthWall_Mat .
Step 21: Use Planar Mapping to ensure the entire object has UVs. With the
object selected, choose Polygons>Create UVs>Planar Mapping (Options).
Change the Fit projection to: setting to Best Plane , and press Project
( Figure 3.16 ).