Creating a Magpie Cart in Maya: Part 4

What You'll Be Creating

1. Unwrapping UVs

Step 1

Continuing on from the last tutorial, I've already combined the geometry part by part for easier organisation. 

Select the front wood plank, go to Windows > Modeling Editors > UV Editor.

Step 2

Click on Planar under Create tab.

Step 3

Select the edges that you want to cut, go to Cut and Sew tab, and click on Cut.

Step 4

Select all UVs from UV Editor, click on Unfold under Unfold tab.

Step 5

Click on Orient Shells under Arrange and Layout tab to straighten the UVs.

Step 6

Select another geometry, click planar again.

Step 7

Cut the edges and unfold.

Step 8

Unwrap all the similar wood plank.

Step 9

Select all the unwrapped UVs, go to Transform tab, click on Get, click on Set to resize the UVs according to geometry size.

Step 10

Rotate the UV shells vertically following the wood grain pattern so that we can save some time on texturing afterwards, but most important is to fill up the UV space.

Step 11

Arrange the UVs into UV space one. Try not to scale the UV shell one by one as the UV size of them will be different.

Step 12

Repeat steps for the wheels too. Arrange them into the UV space too.

Step 13

Arrange the UVs by parts or by materials is easier for texturing. I'll be using UDIM mapping afterwards. 

Step 14

For the roof tiles, Delete the unwanted faces > Planar > Unfold, arrange by using Layout under Arrange and Layout tab.

Step 15

I've used five UV space for all geometries. For window glasses, you don’t need a UV as you won’t be doing textures on it, only materials are needed.

2. Texturing in Substance Painter

Step 1

Before you move to Substance Painter, you have to export the geometry as obj. 

Group all the geometries except for glass geometry by pressing Ctrl-G.

Step 2

Duplicate the group, rename all the geometries to _low. Remember each geometry name can only contain one _, because Substance Painter can only read one _.

Step 3

Duplicate again the cart_low group. Select all geometries in the cart_low group, go to Modify > Search and Replace Names.

Step 4

Choose Selected, then type low in search for and high in Replace with to replace the names.

Step 5

Select all the geometries in _high group > Mesh > Smooth.

Step 6

Select the group cart_low > go to File > Export Selection > Export as obj file. Repeat this step for cart_high group, as well.

Step 7

Open Substance Painter, select the exported low poly obj and tick UDIM tile. Change the setting like the following image then press OK. The resolution can be changed anytime.

Step 8

In the texture list, it should have five UV textures, if it doesn’t, check back the UVs in Maya whether the UV shells are in the UV space or not. 

Always remember not to overwrite the UV space for the UV shells as it will cause error in Substance Painter.

Step 9

Change the 3D view to Orthographic view.

Step 10

Go to Texture Set Settings, click on Bake Mesh Maps.

Step 11

Change the output size to 2048, click on the icon and select the exported high poly obj, set Match to By Mesh Name, then click on Bake all texture sets.

Step 12

You can hide the Texture Set 1002-1005 for easier to check your object in the current texture set. 

These are the geometries in my 1001 texture set.

Step 13

Go to Materials, drag Wood american cherry material into LAYERS.

I'll start texturing the wood plank on the wall first.

Step 14

At the Properties tab, change the wood color and increase the wood roughness.

Step 15

Drag Wood Rough material into Layers under the Wood American cherry layer.

Step 16

Turn off everything except Height. Increase the Height Range for more obvious wood textures.

Step 17

Duplicate the Wood American cherry layer, rename it to Yellow, change the wood color to a yellowish color.

Step 18

Add a black mask to Yellow layer.

Step 19

Go to brushes shelf, select Bark brush and paint on the geometry to create some differences in color.

Step 20

Duplicate another Wood American cherry layer and change the color to a darker brown.

Rename this layer to Dark.

Step 21

Add a black mask for Dark layer, right click on the mask and select Add generator.

Step 22

Click on generator and select Mask Builder–Legacy.

Step 23

Now it will have a darker colour at the edges.

Step 24

Notice that the wood grain direction is not correct for some wood plank because of the UV’s direction, so, select all the layers then press Ctrl-G to group them all.

Step 25

Add a black mask for the Folder 1. Press 4 for Polygon Fill, then select the last icon to fill UV shells.

Step 26

Fill the colour for horizontal UVs, you can either drag on the 2D or 3D view to fill the colour.

Step 27

Duplicate the Folder 1 and add black mask again. Change the rotation to 90º for all the layers in duplicated Folder 1.

Step 28

Select the black mask, press 4, fill the color for vertical UVs. Repaint the yellow layer for other wood plank.

Step 29

Duplicate again the Folder 2 for roof’s wood plank. Delete yellow layer, change the color of Wood American Cherry layer.

Step 30

Add black mask for this folder, then press 4 and fill the UVs of the roof’s wood plank.

Step 31

Since the geometry look a bit dull, I'll change the colour of the front to a lighter colour to create contrast. 

Duplicate Folder 1, add a black mask. Change the color of Wood american cherry layer to a yellowish color. Then press 4 to fill the front part UVs.

Conclusion

In the next part of the tutorial series, I'll continue texturing in Substance Painter.