UV Layout in Silo

A UV Layout is used for texturing a 3D object. 3D softwares like Autodesk Maya and 3Ds Max, for example, are able to identify, which part of the texture should go onto which part of the model when a texture map is applied. The piano I have textured previously was UVed by the modeler. However, it is critical for a texture artist to know how to create his own UV layout from a model because how a model is being UVed will determine where the seams are as well as how much resolution is allocated for various regions of the model. A texture artist may want to create the UV layout differently based on camera distance and the level of details etc.

Alex Frangiamore kindly demonstrated how to create a UV layout in a modelling software called 'Silo'. He has been using Silo for years and said he prefers UVing in Silo instead of Maya.

This is what it looks like when I imported the model. The main viewport on the left is the actual UV box, which matches the UVs inside Maya when the model is exported. The top right viewport shows all the UVs in a 3D view, and the bottom right viewport is the actual 3D model.

First I 'Recreated UVs using XYZ Chords', which basically reestablishes all the surfaces into 3D space like the actual model. (Notice the difference of the top right viewport of the above two images)

I then 'Unwrap the UVs Using LSCM', which basically flattens the all the surfaces from a 3D space to 2D planes.

Now by selecting edges that I wish to use as seams, I cut out various bits of the models and lay them out easily using Silo's 'Live UV Unwrapping', which automatically stretches the UVs proportionally using reference points I marked on the surfaces. It was a bit tricky to get used to the workflow as it seemed very confusing at the start. But once I realised how it works, it seems to be a lot quicker and more accurate than UVing in Maya because the program does a lot of calculation for the user concerning the proportion of surfaces and the shape the UV clusters, this depends heavily on how the seams were cut.

This is a finished version of the UV layout, which probably took me about less than 10 minutes to do. Knowing how to UV is a huge step to become a good texture artist despite how painstaking the process is. In my opinion, using Silo has really cut down a lot of time on this hideous process, and allowed me to focus more on the texturing process, which is more creative and fun.