Maya - Texel Guide

welcome to my texel's guide following up from my texels and uv unwrapping overview where i briefly talked about those two subjects there may be some crossover if you've just watched that video so bear with me if i cover some of the same grounds this guide will be explaining what texels are their functions and how to use them but before that i'm going to talk about scaling and model size as these are important when working with texels and play a key role in how textures are projected onto a model i will include some timestamps in the description if you want to skip ahead at any point scaling your model size i'm going to start with scaling and model size because not having the correct model size before you start unwrapping will cause textures to be inconsistent and will probably result in you having to redo them so before starting uv unwrapping make sure the model is built to the correct scale the size can be checked by making something like a cube to the dimensions that the model should be then comparing it to a model and adjusting the model if needed another trick is to use the distance tool which can be found in the create drop down menu within the measure tool subtool menu by default mayu's units are measured using the metric system so one unit should be one centimeter units can be checked and changed by going into preferences selecting the settings category and looking at the working units if linear is using anything other than centimeters then change it back unless you are intentionally using those units in that case keep a mental note of the units you have chosen and then make sure to make any conversions from what i say to the units you will be using i will be working with my default units of centimeters so why is working to the correct scale so important there are many reasons but for this video i'm only going to talk about it in the context of uvs and text holes for example if an object is too small and a standard game text identity of 5.12 is used then textures are going to look low quality also the uv shells are going to utilize barely any space and people who are new to unwrapping may wonder what's going on they have say a 4k texture their textile identity is correct but the shell is tiny and the quality looks awful on the opposite side if the object is too big the model is going to have much more texture information than needed or too little uv space to work with these are extreme examples that will be noticed as soon as assets are compared to one another or uv shells are checked a more realistic and subtle problem that is caused is inconsistent texture ratios across different assets in the scene most noticeable when objects next to each other are displaying different qualities of textures this can happen when an asset is modeled to the wrong scale and then uv unwrapped and textured before correcting the size the meshes then scaled up quickly to fix the problem creating the inconsistency bad and inconsistent texture qualities stand out and can ruin a scene or project so scale it's important make sure everything is built but its size should be in real life before you start uv unwrapping and things will be fine texels now i'll talk about texels a texel is the smallest unit of measurement used to represent the size of a texture space that texture space on a model should be a single unit of measurement that we are working in for me that's one centimeter as i'm using my default setting of units which is centimeters this means my texture space on a model is one centimeter per one pixel that texel contains pixels from a texture map the number of pixels in a texel is referred to as the textile density the amount of pixels within the texel is whatever i want to set it to for example if i choose 10 pixels it means i will have a text identity of 10 and my object will contain 10 pixels per 1 centimeter if i choose a density of 5 then it would mean i have 5 pixels per 1 centimeter or a text identity of 5. sometimes text identity is referred to as pixel density texture density or pixel ratio just note when people use these or refer to these they mean the same thing a pixel is the smallest unit within a texture map and contains a color a texel is a container for them pixels and is projected onto a model a texel is flexible in how large or small it can be a texture within maya can be as small as a 10 000 for the pixel or house thousands or as many pixels as it likes inside doing either of these is not practical so typically we set a standard density that we will use across the whole of our project the standard should take into account the type of project we are working on so if it's games we want to be as efficient and not use more than we need as to not take up too much computational power also we don't want to use too few as it will make the project look awful for animations and still renders the text identity can be more flexible as the final product will be processed into a video format or image so it's easier to get away with higher or lower text identities one reason we use standard density across all the assets in a project is to keep them consistent so that one object doesn't lock higher resolution compared to another by setting a standard textile density it won't matter if a texture resolution are at different sizes such as 512 or 4096 these discrepancies will occur between objects that are modeled in different scenes or by different people or how the shells are distributed amongst the maps they should all be consistent as long as they stick to the same defined or standardized textile density that has been set some standard text identities in the games industry are 10.24 pixels per centimeter for first person shooting games 5.12 pixels per centimeter for third-person games and 1.28 pixels or 2.56 pixels per centimeter for strategy games these are good standards that should be considered and note that they all fit into the power of tool rule at 100 centimeters squared making it easy to apply into textures across different resolutions now even though the chosen density should be applied across all the assets within a project there are exceptions to the rule for example character faces usually have a slightly higher textile density than other objects in the scene and even other parts of the body of a character as this is where players will be looking directly at for the longest amount of time other exceptions are objects such as mountains or buildings that are far away and won't be seen up close they are typically a lower text identity another example could be a weapon in a first person shooter or an object that gets exceptionally close to the camera they would all be a higher technical density the textual density is determined by the camera's distance to the object in the scene this is because the closer the object is to the camera the more of that object takes up the screen and the more of its texture you'll see ideally we want to match one pixel of the screen to one pixel of the texture from the object at its intended viewing distance hence the high pixel density of weapons that are held in first person shooting games compared to other objects in the scene getting the object's pixels fitting perfectly with the monitor is impossible as there are varying monitor resolutions the camera will move closer than you would like to the object in the scene and there will be many other factors out of your control but getting the textile density high enough for the textures to not look bad at an average viewing distance or even just a bit closer than you expect the camera to be is a good start and setting it to a number that is a power of two 100 centimeters squared will go a long way to create a pleasing and consistent viewing experience the textile identity should be decided on before uv unwrapping starts the density can be set in the uv toolkit under the transformation tab within the tab is a button to get the density based off an existing uv shell an arrow to select one of maya's preset densities two input boxes one to type identity and one for map size and finally a button to set a density to a selected shell if you're working on someone else's project you should be told the density to work at if it's a personal project and you're unsure what to pick then either choose one from the industry standards i talked about or you can judge it by eye to do that create a mock scene with boxes acting as placeholders for the models apply a detailed texture to the boxes and then move the camera to the expected viewing distance or even slightly closer in the uv editor scale the uv shells of the boxes until the texture density looks pleasing when looking through the camera once the texture is looking good through the camera press the get button in the uv toolkit as this will give you a value that can either be upscaled or down scaled to a power of two number once the textile density is determined models can be unwrapped after all the pieces are nicely unwrapped they can be selected with the uv shell select and have their textile density set by pressing the set button the shells can then be packed as desired but note if the automatic layout tool is used to pack the ev shells it will favor utilizing texture space and increase or decrease your textile density there are methods to correcting this change in density but this will be covered in another video where i talk about uv unwrapping for now here are some examples of text identities compared to map sizes to demonstrate how it keeps everything looking consistent and here are some examples of bad and inconsistent text identities hopefully i've highlighted the importance of understanding text identities and why we should use a standard density and that i've also explained what textiles are why they are important and how to use them i'll have another guide out on uv unwrapping leading on from this one at some point so keep an eye out for that if you're interested thanks for watching and i'll catch you next time

Channel: Leon Cabrera

Views: 2,535

Keywords: Maya, Texels, Texel Guide, Maya Guide

Id: ITLXSJpLOs4

Length: 10min 0sec (600 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020