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Is it possible to lock UVs in Maya?

by Shay Leary · in Artist Corner · 02/08/2006 (2:44 am) · 3 replies

Hi All,

I've created a number of characters in Maya, each of which include LOD. For each detail level I have had to move the UVs about (using the UV texture editor) to reposition the UVs on the texture. This is because as I have reduced the number of polygons the UVs have moved, changing the texture position.

For all characters I have followed the same procedure and they all animate ok, apart from one.

One of the detail levels on one of the characters seems to move the UVs when I rotate any joints. This is strange as all the other detail levels don't (and all the other characters) affect the UVs.

I am wondering if maybe I have changed a setting somewhere on the UV settings for this particular detail level, and if it is possible to lock the UVs so that they do not move.

Thanks,

Shay Leary
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Torque Owner Jeff Gran
#1
02/15/2006 (2:39 pm)
It's hard to tell exactly what the problem is without seeing it in effect, but here are some ideas:

Maybe you had the auto-key button on and accidentally animated the UVs while you were editing them?
or animated some of the settings in the placetexture2d node for that texture?

Maybe you were using set-driven-key and somehow linked the motion of a bone to the UVs?

Maybe the texture is applied with "placeTexture3D" instead of "..2D"?

Does it happen the same no matter what bone you rotate? Does moving the time slider cause it or just the bones? I can't say any of these suggestions sound like what you're after but maybe I could help you thinking in the right direction... worst comes to worst I'd say just delete the model and redo it, since you didn't have the problem with any of the other models.

Torque Owner Shay Leary
#2
02/15/2006 (4:46 pm)
Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the reply. It's very strange, the UVs seem to move whenever I rotate any bones. I haven't actually created any animation yet. I also get the same problem if I try placing a different texture on the model.

If I apply automatic mapping to the texture, then rotate a bone. The texture seem to move in two ways.
1) Some small area of faces (areas of 2-5 joining polygons) move all over the place.
In the UV editor you can then see that the UVs have moved.
2) The rest of the texture (most of it) just seems to move very slighlty (like a vibrating effect).

If I move any of the UVs using the texture editor and then rotate a bones, then the UVs seem to shoot off in all directions.


I've played around, but just can't find what's causing the problem. I think the best solutions will be to delete the detail level model and start again.

Thanks for you help,

Shay

Torque 3D Owner Affectworks
#3
02/15/2006 (7:51 pm)
Here's why you get the swimming of your textures:

In the mapping options there is a "Insert Before Deformers" option. This is relevant when the polygonal object has a deformation applied to it such as skinning. If the option is turned off and the deformation is animated, the texture placement is affected by the change in vertex positions. This leads to "swimming" textures.

Besides this I have found that the Maya exporter really likes a clean history when it exports. Delete your skin, history and rebind your character(s) to the skeleton after you have created your LOD meshes.