Maya 8.0 Character Modeling

Chapter 12UVs and Textures

A Bit about Advanced Shaders

Refer to Chapter_12 on the companion CD.

Now that we have a completed model we can move on to the next step — adding textures. There are many ways in which to approach the UV layout as well as the creation of the texture itself.

Characters these days are looking more and more lifelike due to the development of advanced shaders. In Chapter 3, “A Modeling Primer,” we briefly discussed normal mapping. When used in Maya, the normal map is a somewhat elaborate shading network that is then applied to the geometry and rendered to achieve the desired results. Remember our example from Chapter 3?