Introduction
I started unfolding UV this week! In the last semester, I have tried to unfold a simple model in Maya and learned some basic UV map knowledge. And this time I am about to learn a new software: RizomUV to help me unfold UV!
Process
After making the model, Yann suggested that I try RizomUV to create the texture. Of course, if I prefer to use Maya, he can also help me. Before this, I have seen others use RizomUV to unfold UV quickly, and its function is much more powerful than Maya. So I decided I want to learn this software.
But unlike Zbrush and Maya, RizomUV has many instructional videos on the Internet. I also watched a lot of instructional videos (really a lot of them) before I learned some of the techniques. For example, its automatic unfold UV will be more powerful than Maya (Maya’s unfold 3D function was developed by RizomUV).
There is no problem with the model I imported, because I heard that if there is a problem with the model, RizomUV will not be able to recognize my file. I got acquainted with the view first. Although its view is very simple, but the function is very powerful, I hope I can unfold UV smoothly.
At this time I have discovered that I cannot seam my UV, nor can I switch on the symmetry function, but I thought I did it incorrectly. I will refer to this issue again next.
Actually, before this, I was thinking about unfolding with Maya. If there is a problem, Yann can help me adjust it, but I don’t know why. Every time I unfold the head, Maya will prompt me to Unfold3D process. error, so I gave up Maya.
In RizomUV, Maha’s head was unfolded smoothly. But her mouth doesn’t know why there are so many faces. Even though I know it is because the position of the upper lip and the lower lip are reversed in the UV map, I can’t adjust it by moving the points. So I leave it alone.
The whole head unfolded very smoothly, because these are simple models, I arranged them and divided them into groups.
The other elements were also unfolded smoothly. However, when I found out that I really couldn’t seam, I started to panic. I had to check the information and finally found the problem: I used the Chinese version, and the Chinese version has bugs, including the inability to seam and the inability to switch on symmetry. So I switched to the English version, and the problem was solved!
Of course, my cut is not perfect, there will always be some places where I will be lazy and unfold directly, because I don’t have time to adjust the uv map one by one.
The next problem is that I found a problem with my jetpack! Even though I have been very careful, when I was making the model, the redundant faces were extruded but there was no redo. I tried to delete the faces one by one, but it was too troublesome. So I went to check the information again, and finally found a way in a video: Use Cleanup in Mesh to delete extra faces!
But at this time the normal direction of the model was reversed. I found this function after searching for a long time and reversed the normal direction.
What’s even more funny is that I started to feel that there was no problem with my model. As a result, I realized that when I first imported the model, the yellow dots that appeared meant that the points of the model were not welded. There was a problem. Although there is no big problem with my model as a whole, there are details. I went back to Maya to adjust my model.
Anyway, as long as I have patience, I can unfold all the UVs! This looks really good! Although I was lazy and didn’t turn the UV map of each model into a rectangle, it looked neat at first glance.
Then I went back to the UV problem of the face. I asked the team members. Yann understood my problem and asked me to give him the file. He unfolded it in Maya and exported it, and then sent it to me.
He told me that I cannot unfold in Maya because the processor of my computer is AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor 3.60 GHz. Unfold3D does not support this processor. = =? ? ?
Finally, I adjusted the UV map in Maya and renamed each model. Because I exported an obj file, the obj file will turn all models into one model. Even if I divide them into groups, the names and positions of the models are messy after importing them. This took me a lot of time because I have too many models!
Next, I just need to apply different materials to different UV maps and ensure that the checker map displayed by each model is the same size. I can use Texel Density get and set density to guarantee this.
I have to mention that my model has 40MB, which is too big! Yann reminded me to let me shrink the model, and it turned out that the reduced model was less than 10MB.
By the way, during the discussion between Yann and I, I learned about a new profession (I’m sorry I don’t know what the English name is), and I adapt the asset to the scene. I also learned that if I want to let the character breathe, it would be better to choose ik in the spine.
Here I also need to say that I am still working on the Zhu project. Zhu wants me to adjust the walking animation to the front left and rear right, front right and rear left for the character. We already have animations of walking forward, walking backward, walking left and walking right, but the blend shape alone cannot completely solve the strange walking problem.
For example, this is going forward:
This is walking forward left without adjustment:
This is the animation made by blend shape:
To be honest, I find it difficult. I can’t change the animation, so I can only use Redirect to change the direction, but Zhu feels that there is a problem with the changed direction. We can only stop adjusting the animation first. Maybe I can question Luke.
Conclusion
This week, I learned a new software RizomUV. After practice, I feel that I can quickly unfold UV and export UV map by myself! Before this, I unfold all simple models. I am very happy to be able to unfold human UV with the help of teammate. Then, I learned how to clean up my model, which is helpful for me to check my model later and prevent my model from having bugs. Finally, thank Zhu for helping me try to import the model I adjusted again and again. A good team member can make the project smoother!