Want Help On How To Add Image On Mesh?

[chitzs]

Hi friend i m very new to use MAYA n i have created this bike. i want to put a sticker on the RED MARK i have shown in below image. can someone pls help me and tell me how i can do it easily? i will be very thankful.

Image of mesh with Red Marked where i want to stick the IMAGE/FILE :-

Sticker i want to stick on mesh in Maya :-

[fortner_mike]

Hey there m8.

Ok first you should map your bikes uv , on your case it doesnt have to be good, it has to do its work only for this spot, so you can do (select your bike) polygons UV-> planar mapping. Go to settings and set projection axis to that of your bikes left, or right. Uncheck keep image ratio if its checked. Now open uv editor and export your snapshot (polygons-> uv snapshot). Now use your image editor and place the image onto the wireframe where it should be. And this is where i'm stuck. ANYONE who knows how to do it please finish my instructions. You should somehow create a layered shader and add your texture and also that textures alpha (so that only the part with the image would be visible). I dont know to what should i connect alpha in the hypershade.

You can walk around this however. Just paint the whole texture with the color you want your bike to be, add the image where you want it and remove the wireframe. Then in maya assign a shader, and either through hypershade, or simply via ctrl+a menu, assign colour to be the texture that you have created.

[chitzs]

Thanks for u r help thirt33n. Here is what i got but i m unable to make background transperant and also i havent understood given tutorial here as its very tedious n hard for me 2 understand that one.

Image :-

[chitzs]

Thanks even i m working to do something on it, lets c what output we get

[fortner_mike]

EDIT

hey i found a faster way, so scroll down to my other post, however it is not as detailed as this one, so if you dont understand something, look for answers in this post

/EDIT

Ok i wil write a small tutorial for you. Impromptu

First part: image setup

Ok first we need to set up an image that would have alpha channel.

So open your image in photoshop. Now in the layer window there is another tab called Channels. Open it. Create a new channel, you should now have alpha channel. Now go back to your layers and select everything that you want to be visible (the parts that will be not visible should be not selected)You can use magic wand onto the background and then select-> inverse. Now get back to your alpha channel, make sure its the only one visible, and that its the only one selected. Now simply paint with your brush the selected parts. Where the color is white it will be transparent, black will be visible, you can also use say 50% gray, that would make it only 50% transparent. When you're done painting the alpha save to bmp.

Second part: creating the shader in maya

Close photoshop and open maya. Open your scene. Now go to hypershade
(windows->rendering->hypershade)

On the left side there should be a window with shaders(should be three windows in total, two horizontal and one vertical in the right side), if there is no third window, press the little button under the "file"(one with black and white squares))
1.Create a layered shader
2.Create a lambert (or any other shader, this one will be the material of your image)
3.Create a phong(or any other material, this will be the shader of your bike's body.)
4.Create a file

1.Go to textures tab and sellect your file, ctrl+a, assign your texture image to this file.

1.Get back to materials tab, right click layered shader and "graph network"

btw, you can move in this workspace like you do in the modeling viewports(alt+ mouse clicks and drag)

1.Go to texture tab and middle click and drag and drop your file into the work area (lower window)
2.Also drag and drop the two shaders
3.Notice the little arrows in the bottom corners of icons, hit the right one of your file, now sellect out alpha and then click on the shader for your texture, now select transparency-> transparency R, repeat two more times but connect out alpha to transparency G and transparency B(or connect out transparency to "default", this should open connection editor and you can do it all at once)
4.Now the same way connect out color of texture to color of shader.

1Sometimes layered shader sets itself to transparent, so go to its properties and set it back to not transparent if this happens.

1.Now adjust your bike shader however you want(change color and stuff like that) and connect this shaders out color to layered shader's color[0]

And while you are doing all this i will try and figure out the last part and post it ASAP.

[fortner_mike]

so sory m8, but you wil have to redo it all(but it wil work perfectly), i found a much more simplier way(hey, at least you learned something about hypergraph)(however i will leave the old one if you need some reference on basics, like how to connect and stuff):

1.In hypershade create layered shader, your bike's shader and your image's shader and your image's file.

2.In hpershade connect your texture's out colour to shaders colour, and your textures out alpha to your shaders transparency (R, G and B )

3.Now set up your bike's shader (choose color you like and things like that)

4.Now open your layered shaders options, and also open hypergraph(so you can work with both in the same time):

1.From hypergraph middle click your textures shader(not file, *shader*) and drag and drop it(middle     mouse button) into the properties window of your layered shader into the red frame.

2.Also drag and drop your bikes shader and drop it in the same place

3.Delete every other layer that is there(click the little cross below the layers thumbnail). Should be only two layers left, your bikes and your textures shaders

And here we go, assign this layered shader to your bike and that's (finally) it.

Now another thing about your bike, have you thought converting it to subdivision, would give a very cool smooth effect over the body, that would never be achieved by just smoothing polygon. Here is a nice tutorial about modeling with subdivision surfaces http://www.3dm3.com/tutorials/maya/car3/

[chitzs]

Thanks for ur gr8 tutorials buddy. It really helping me alot n u teached me lods of good things by this. i go a problem in u r second tutorial point number 2 u said :_ 2.In hpershade connect your texture's out colour to shaders colour, and your textures out alpha to your shaders transparency (R, G and B )
here i didnt get textures out color means which one? i m confused. sorry if i m troubling u but i m wierd there, hope u wont mind solving it so i will look further 2 next steps and that CAR TUTORIAL is awesome one. thanks 4 da link, it will help me to add one file in m Portfolio if i create that car Thanks Again 4 UR Kind Help.

[fortner_mike]

QUOTE
2.In hpershade connect your texture's out colour to shaders colour, and your textures out alpha to your shaders transparency (R, G and B )

Ok, a sub-tutorial

1.Open hypershade.
2.Middle click and drag and drop your shader(the one you will use for image)into the workspace (the lower window)and also drag and drop your texture into workspace. Now click on the little arrow in the bottom right corner of your texture and select 'out color', then click on the shader and select 'color'.(when the line between two icons appear-that is the connection, and this operation is called connecting)
3.Now for the alpha. Connect 'out alpha' to transparency (R, G and B channels). That is clik on te arrow of texture and select out alpha. Then click the shader and go to transparency, and then in the new menu connect to transparencyR, then repeat the same for two more times but connect out alpha to transparency G and transparency B .

Texture out colour means, you have to click on your file icon go to out colour->out colour.

If this is not clear enough, i think i can try and make a video tutorial. But my writing english is way better than speaking....

[chitzs]

it will be great if u create video tutorial coz i m really confused with texture file & connection editor. n if u show it in video then i will understand n also my english is not so perfect like u saying so i can understand u well hehe. will wait 4 video then. Thanks in advance.

[fortner_mike]

ok, when i wil be done i will upload it somewhere and give u a link. I thunk tomorrow, because...you know..today is Christmas...

[chitzs]

fine buddy. not in hurry but do it soon and MERRY CHRISTMAS to U, Ur Friends & Family & All Users Here

[fortner_mike]

YEAH, you to.

Now here is the tutorial (lol, had nothing better to do again, so i did it tooday)

PaintjobTutorial.rar of size 2.34 MB(contains an avi of 60mb inside)

http://www.filefactory.com/file/5246c1/

No voiceover though, because everything is simple...just watch the mouse(and also saved around 20-50 mb)

Oh and hurry because if you dont download the file in 7 days the hoster will delete it from their server.

[chitzs]

wow so fast, i just finished my 1st msg hehe.. well let me download n see da tutorial n i will tell u what i done with it. Thanks for u r help

Edit :- Simple n nice tutorial. i will work on bike using it. Thanks!

[fortner_mike]

NP

[chitzs]

ohhh got problem as u see that YAMAHA is written in white colour so dat image is all getting transpert n showing only LAYERD SHADERS GREEN color only. what should i do ??

[fortner_mike]

first: if you did the alpha chanel correctly with photoshop (i can make a video tut about that as well...today), then it doesnt matter what color is the image itself. Because alpha channel is like another separate image that you cant actually see, buts its in the same file, it has no connection to the actual image.

But this may also be because you did the layered shader wrong. Watch that video again: the part where i darg and drop both shaders into the layered shader has to be done in the same sequence. You have to first add the paint job, and after that the body shader

[chitzs]

well... i thought we have to take single image. so i took image which contains no ALPHA CHANNELS. i will hv to check it then. will tell u what i did after trying it thanks, n how was u r Christmas? hope u njoyed!

Edit :-

Here i got it upside down n its showing gray when it should be white . am i wrong in making alpha channel or wat?? n how to increase or decrease image size there?

[fortner_mike]

to fix the flipping : go to your file in maya, hit ctrl+a, then go to place2dtexture tab and adjust the rotate frame (give it 180 degrees if you want to flip it.), or flip it in photoshop.

I will make another tut on how to make this thing in photoshop and then in maya..all in one.

Check back in few hours or so.

[chitzs]

wow that will be great. it will help lots of new users then. i m waiting 4 it. also pls tell me how to fix image exactly in size there. thanks in adv.

[fortner_mike]

Ok, here it is.I did the same thing that you are doing(YAMAHA letters) i wrote the letters black, but there is no difference you can make it whatever color you like, as long as the alpha is correct..

Just to let you know, i'm new to shading and every time you ask something i just go and experiment until i find a solution, therefore there may be better solutions than the ones i suggest.

And about the image size: there may be two ways, one is to change the size in photoshop (i think you dont need a tutorial on that ) and the other is to select all your UV's and scale them(demonstrated in the end of tutorial).

Good Luck

http://www.filefactory.com/file/6f77fd/

3 megs rar with 139 megs video inside