Texturing a Scene in Photoshop and Maya

In the lesson today we were told by our teacher that we were going to be texturing a ready made scene in Maya using Direct X11 shader. This was quite interesting and was something that I was really eager to learn. I had always struggled in this department and only until recently, while I have been working on my team game and with the help of team members, have I come close to overcoming this.

The first thing that we had to do was go and select the files that the teacher had given us and open it up as its own project. In this file, we had the scene that we had been set and all the textures, already for us to place onto the scene. The thing was, our teacher wanted us to do this ourselves, giving us the scenes but the textures had to be modified in our own unique way, using a variety of skills on Photoshop. The next thing was that we had to make sure that the Direct X 11 shader was in the scene, as this task was going to prove extremely difficult if we didn't have it. It was just a case of going into the project settings and making sure that it was ticked.

Importing the right assets in Maya.

The scene was fairly simple, it consisted of a barrel, a pavement, some drainpipes and a boarded up window. The way that we would go about this is that we would create a U.V snapshot of the several different objects that we would want to texture. The next thing we would do is take this snapshot into Photoshop. With the snapshot, we get to look at all the U.V's and how they work, meaning that we can place and image on top of those U.V's to make sure that that they will line up on the object perfectly.

The scene ready to texture.

In Photoshop we are presented with a set of U.V's if we select the file that we had just snapshotted. In here we could line up anything that we wanted and then make it appear on the object that we took the U.V's off of. Below the example is a barrel, we have the barrel model in the scene but its clear white. So by editing the U.V's, applying an image that I like to it and then adding adjustments, such as making it look old, its ready to put into the scene,

Adding the textures that I wanted in the scene.

We can then go back into the scene that we had made up for us and then add a material, by doing that we can then select the Direct X 11 shader and then add a file to it. The file has to be a targa, this means that the U.V's will find the ones of the object and stick to them.

Setting up the Direct X 11 shader.

Once we had the file that we had been working on selected as a material for the shader, all we had left to do was click apply and it fits onto the image perfectly. The best thing is that we can modify it adn upload the same file and it will apply the changes. The result has worked out well and is a very interesting way of texturing, the rest of the scene now had to be textured.

Applying the Direct X 11 shader.

We were also given the U.V's to the majority of the street. Again, repeating the same process that we had done previously, I grabbed a variety of textures and placed them all over this snapshot. Also by putting together all of the Photoshop skills that I had learnt this year, I managed to combine several of the textures together and create a lot of depth in the scene.

Continuing applying textures on the U.V's.

Again by looking at the same things that I had done previously, I just had to apply it as a Direct X 11 shader and it appeared straight onto the scene. I was really happy with the way that this piece of texture had turned out, If you have seen my previous blog posts, you would know that this area has been something I haven't quite tackled yet, but today has been a big step forward and can only hope that I go more in depth with this area of Maya.

The finished scene.