Where do UV maps 'live?'

CrissieB

Are UV maps part of a material, or part of the object itself?

I'm designing a basement set in Hexagon that I hope sell as an environment at DAZ or elsewhere. Attached is an early draft Hexagon render. The basement totals 15x10m, with a 9x10m Main room (foreground), a 6x6m Second room (upper left), an 4x4m Utility room (off the Main room), and a 2x4m Shower (far corner). The gray ramp marks where the stairway will be.

To minimize clutter in the Scene List, I'm defining multiple materials for objects. For example, the Basement Floor has four materials: Main, Second, Utility, and Shower. The North Exterior Wall has five materials: Main Wall Top, Main Wall Bottom, Utility Wall, Shower Wall, and Unseen (all other faces). The Main-Utility Interior Wall also has five materials: Main Wall Top, Main Wall Bottom, Utility Wall, Doorway Facing, and Unseen (all other faces).

To create each wall, I followed these steps: (1) create a Grid primitive with 1m (if no door) or 0.5m (if door) intervals; (2) delete faces where the door will be; (3) add Thickness (0.2m for exterior walls, 0.15m for interior walls); (4) select the entire object and UV Map with a basic plane; (5) select faces, create Shading Domains, and Change Material for each domain, choosing from my Materials list: Main Floor, Second Floor, Utility Floor, Shower Floor, Main Wall Top, Main Wall Bottom, Second Wall, Utility Wall, Shower Wall, and Unseen. As I went along, I deleted all of the unused materials (e.g.: material78) that were created by default.

Ultimately, DAZ Studio users should be able to select an object, go to the Surfaces tab, select one of its material areas, and select from the Material Presets I'll include in the package, or create their own for an entirely unique look. But DAZ Studio needs objects to be UV mapped for Iray shaders to work properly.

So ... do UV maps 'live' with the object itself, or are they defined for each material? Did I delete the UV maps when I deleted those unused materials? Or do my floor and walls still have the basic plane UV maps I applied as I created each object?

Thank you for your help!

Crissie

mjc1016

cris_brown said:

So ... do UV maps 'live' with the object itself, or are they defined for each material? Did I delete the UV maps when I deleted those unused materials? Or do my floor and walls still have the basic plane UV maps I applied as I created each object?

Thank you for your help!

Crissie

UV coordinates/mapping is part of the geometry file...

CrissieB

Thank you, mjc1016. So all of my objects should still be UV-mapped?

mjc1016

cris_brown said:

Thank you, mjc1016. So all of my objects should still be UV-mapped?

Yes.

CrissieB

Thank you, mjc1016! :-)