Recently we were visited by a former grad student of our program to show us how to efficiently texture a face based on a referenced model. The method is very sound and it’s how to is the subject of this week’s blog entry. I’ll put it in point form, step by step for easy reference.
Note: Prior to unwraping, close holes like eyes and mouth -> select an edge and use the fill hole tool.
-Assign a new material to the head
-Apply the file as a nurbs projection
-Up a couple of levels from the file (the projection options) use interactive placement
-Change renderer to high quality rendering to see the image clearly on the projection
-Modify the projection box so that it projects at the correct angle according to the reference
-Select the object, open hypershade, shift select face and face lambert -> Edit -> convert to file texture (option box make it the original texture dimensions and make targa -> convert – this creates a new shader in the hypershade.
-Apply the side view reference to the same network as before and rotate the projection box to the side of the face (the J key rotates in 15 degree increments)
-Line everything up as before
-Repeat steps to bake side view
-Edit the images in PS – copy the side view image to the front view image as another layer.
Photoshop:
-Put the front layer to the top and erase the areas that don’t show as the front view and the other views will come into view
-Open the hypershade, get rid of all the lamberts that were used
assign a new material make sure you apply the file as NORMAL and apply the newly created image.
That’s it! Now all you have to do is cleanup the seams.
3D paint tool:
-Rendering -> Texturing -> 3D paint tool- option box
-Paint operations use Clone feature (like the clone stamp tool)
-Ensure you enable update on stroke to see your brushes as they stroke
Note: With larger source images, save often as it fills the ram quickly and may crash Maya.
-This creates a new flattened image with the seam corrections including the original image as one image.
-Desaturate the image to around -40 so that the scene’s lights are what dictate the colour on the textures.
Finally apply the new updated, clean, desaturated texture to your head. All Done!
