UVs and Shaders

cclesue

I need a little help in understanding some shader basics. I constantly see reference to a mesh’s “UV’s”. Up till now I have assumed the UVs to the attendant files that I’ve a basic modeler’s mesh the “skin” so to speak. In other words the mesh is the wire frame and the texture consists of the various maps placed on the mesh to give it virtual substance. The texture consisting of the displacement and/or bump maps and the color map are the UVs. Am I correct in this assumption? If so to what effect do the shaders affect the texture. (Always wanted to use both them words in one sentence). 

For instance will the “cartoon” shaders affect the displacement maps that give a model a craggy face? the image below is one I did using a live model and Smay’s Last gladiator for M4 and various props from poser and compiled in Photoshop. I would like to do something like this in DS using all meshes rendered in cartoon style but retaining the craggy aspect of the male. Will that work?

Live Model: Carlotta Champagne MM #3155 (Warning: lots of Nudity)

fixmypcmike

The UVset is the mapping between pixels on the texture jpg and vertices on the mesh.  Whether a particular shader will preserve displacement maps depends on the shader -- if the shader includes the displacement channel and you keep the maps when you apply it, then it should keep that effect.

cclesue

How do I find out if the particular shader has the displacment channel before I purchase the darn thing. I'm looking at the Visual style Shaders sku 14398.

nemesis10

A very quick reiteration of what is a uv map; it is a description of the shape of a model; think of wrapping a bowling ball with checkered paper making sure the pattern has no errors or making a distortion free world globe.  Each of Daz's figure comes with one of a few Uv maps (when you buy a character, it will say that it it is for genesis, or Michael 4 or Victoria 6 etc...  In the case of this particular product, you apply a character texture and then apply the shader which alters the settings for the texture so it is probably uv independent.  

cclesue said:

How do I find out if the particular shader has the displacment channel before I purchase the darn thing. I'm looking at the Visual style Shaders sku 14398.

 

cclesue

I long ago decided modeling wasn't for me since no matter what I tried all my (fiuratively speaking) bowling balls had holes in them and the darn UVs would take. 

sura_tc

To put it simply, a UV map is a set of coordinates where texture skin would go where.

ghastlycomic

UV map is essential the translation of the three dimensional geometry of a model into a two dimentional map. If you think of your 3D model as a stuffed teddy bear you mark your seams in the UV map as places where you will cut the fabric of the teddy bear so that when you stretch it out on a table the fabric will lay as flat as possible. Or to think of it in the simplest terms imagine a cardboard cube box. Depending on where you put the seams (make the cuts) you could have the box unfold flat and look like a cross, or you could have it fold flat as six seperate squares if you cut along each edge.

This is why people will refer to UV mapping as unwrapping the model. You're basically cutting into the model and trying to arrange the geometry so it will lay as flat as possible. When a texture map is applied to the model it is basically superimposed over the two dimentional UV map. The software then "wraps" that two dimentional map over top of the three dimentional geometry.

xyer0

Purchase Visual Style Shaders, and if it doesn't have what you need, return it within 30 days, no questions asked, through the Help page.

DestinysGarden

I just checked and Visual Styles does indeed include a channel for displacement and bump maps.