Model, UVMap, Texture, Light and Render Leather Shoes in Maya

Hey guys, in this second and final part of the Shoe tutorial, I am going to share with you the process of Unwrapping, Texturing, Lighting and Compositing the shoes.

Step 1

Open the Shoe file which we had saved in the end of the last part of the tutorial. Since we have already done the modeling of the shoes we don’t need the image planes anymore and we’ll delete them now. To delete the image planes, go to Window > Rendering > Editor > Hypershade > Utilities, select the image planes and press Delete.

Step 2

Select a part of the shoe and then press the arrow key. You’ll see the whole shoe is selected now. This is because we have made a group of all the parts of the shoe. After making the group, we can select the object like this.

Step 3

Now after selecting the shoe, make it isolated. Select it, then go to Show > Isolate Select > View Selected or press Shift + I.

Step 4

Now we will Unwrap all the parts of the shoe one by one. Let’s start with the shoe’s sole. Select it and make it isolated, and then Select the Top and Bottom faces of the shoe.

Step 5

Then go to Create UVs > Planner Mapping (click on the option box.) It opens the Planner Mapping Options box. Set the axis according to your selected faces and click on Apply.

Step 6

You can see a red colored T shape in the viewport. When you click on it, it shows the Manipulator on the screen. In the Manipulator, we have Move, Rotate and Scale tools and we can use them accordingly to transform the UVs in the UV texture editor. After that if you want to move, scale or rotate any unwrapped faces like I have selected Top and Bottom faces of the shoe, you have to select the UVs first. So Right click and then select UV.

Click on Edit UV > UV Texture Editor, and it opens the UV texture editor window.

Step 7

Now we have to check that UVs are opened properly or not. So go to Window > Rendering Editor >Hypershade and choose the checker material from the material list.

Then select the sole, go to the Checker material, Right Click > Assign Texture’s material to Selection. If the Checker material does not appear on the sole then press 6 on the keyboard. The 6 key is for showing the material in the viewport and the 5 key is to hide the material.

Step 8

When you open the UV texture editor you will see the Checker material in your UV texture editor also. As you can see in the image all the checkers are stretched.

If you want to hide the texture in the UV texture editor then click on the Display Image On/Off button.

Step 9

Now we will learn how to set the UVs perfectly. Go to UV texture editor, Right-click > UV, select all the UVs.

By using the Scale tool, scale the UVs horizontally. Now you can see the checkers are perfectly squared now. If the checkers are properly squared that means the UVs are opened properly.

Step 10

Select a vertex in the UV Texture Editor and then go to Select > Select Shell. The whole UV group is now selected.

With the help of the Move tool, move the bottom UVs aside.

Do the same with the top UVs of the sole.

Step 11

Now select the front faces of the sole.

Go to Create UVs > Planner Mapping, (click on the option box) and apply Planner mapping on these selected faces.

Click on the Red T shape to see the manipulator. Set the UVs properly by using the Rotate and Scale tools.

Step 12

Now I will tell you how to set the overlapped UVs. Select the overlapped UVs then go to Tool >Smooth UV tool.

When you click on the Smooth UV tool you can see two options- Unfold and Relax are visible on the screen.

Here the UVs are overlapped therefore we will use the Unfold option. Select the overlapped UVs and then click on Unfold and drag it at the right side. After that you will see the UVs are unfolded now. Now wherever the UVs are overlapped, use this tool.

Step 13

Whenever you want the UVs to be straight, Select the UVs and use these four red arrows according to the direction. I am using magnifier to show you the larger image.

UVs are now straight.

Similarly unwrap the whole sole.

Step 14

Now select some faces on the heel and unwrap them separately.

Now the sole is fully unwrapped.

Step 15

Now we have to unwrap the front part of the shoe.

First Isolate the selection.

Step 16

Select the top faces.

Then apply the Planner mapping and set the UVs properly.

Now we can Select the outside faces (on both sides of the shoe) at the same time, and Apply Planner mapping.

Step 17

Now select the inside faces and apply Planner mapping.

Now Move each UV group some distance apart from each other.

Step 18

Select the front toe outside faces and unwrap them.

Now select the inside toe faces and unwrap them too.

Select the top inside faces and unwrap them also, as shown.

Step 19

Now follow the next several images to unwrap the rest of the UVs (which I've marked below with a red arrow.)

Step 20

Select edges from the joints (or from where both the UV sets will be connected.) When you select the edges you can see that other edges become selected automatically. These are the corresponding edges of the selected edges. It means that the edges you selected first, will be connected with their corresponding edges which were selected automatically.

Select the edges and click on Move and Sew to connect both UV sets together.

Now both UV sets are connected to each other.

Similarly connect all the rest of the UVs as shown below.

Step 21

Now you have learned how to unwrap. Just like this unwrap the back part of the shoe. I think I don’t need to repeat the same steps again, because now you can unwrap it easily.

Step 22

Similarly unwrap the shoe's logo.

Step 23

Now we have to unwrap shoe laces. This time I will teach you how to unwrap Cylindrical shapes. First of all Delete the cap faces of the lace.

With the lace faces selected, go to Create UV > Cylindrical Mapping, and apply Cylindrical mapping.

Then click on the Red 'T' shape sign.

After clicking on the Red 'T' shape, its color changes from Red to Yellow.

Now click on the Blue colored circle which is actually the Scale tool. By using the Scale tool, set the cylindrical frame. Once you set the frame according to the object, you can see the shoe lace faces are properly unwrapped in the UV Texture Editor. For better viewing, you can change the viewport’s background color by pressing Alt + B.

Step 24

Now Select some more faces and unwrap them.

Step 25

Apply the checker material onto the shoe lace and check that the UVs are opened properly or not.

Set the UVs by using the Scaling tool.

Step 26

Now again connect both the UV sets with the help of the Move and Sew tool.

Step 27

Now you have come to know how to unwrap a cylindrical shape. Sometimes you may have to face some difficulty. Suppose you have to connect two faces together as shown in the image below.

When you try to connect the joint it will connect wrongly as shown in the following figure.

Step 28

To solve this problem first Undo the last command.

Then go to Face mode and Select all the faces which were wrongly connected. Then go to Polygon > Flip (click on the options box), in the UV Texture Editor.

Flip these faces vertically. You may have to flip both vertically and horizontally at the same time, as per your requirements.

Now you can see UVs are connecting properly.

Thus our shoe lace is completely unwrapped now.

Step 29

Select the whole shoe as a group. You know how to select a group! Select any part of the shoe and then press the Up arrow key.

Then go to the UV Texture Editor. Now put the shoe’s outside faces up and the inside faces down. Also connect the side part of the shoe with the front top part. Because it’ll help us while doing the texturing. Keep the outside faces together and the inside faces together.

Step 30

Now set the UVs in the box as you can see in the image below.

For texturing in Photoshop we have to get a snapshot of the UVs. First of all, get out of UV mode and Select the whole shoe. In the UV Texture Editor, go to Polygon > UV Snapshot.

Set the location, file name, size x, size y and the image format (PNG.) Size is the dimensions of 2048 x 2048. Then click on OK. Your UV snapshot will be saved at the preferred location.

Step 31

Open Photoshop and also open the UV snapshot of the shoe. We saved it in PNG format, so the background will not be visible.

Click on the Create New Layer button to create a new layer. Now rename it as ‘Background’.

Step 32

Keep the background layer below 'Layer 0'. Press Alt + Backspace to fill the background layer with a Black color.

Step 33

Before starting texturing we have to collect textures for our shoes. So I took some textures from my texture library. A seamless leather texture, one rough fabric texture for the shoelaces and one texture for sole’s bottom.

Step 34

So let’s start texturing. Go back to Photoshop, open the shoe UVs PNG image. Always Keep the UV layer on top and rename it as UVs. Open the leather texture and drag it onto the shoe UVs PNG image.

Press Ctrl + T, to Transform the selection, and Scale the leather texture down and then make some copies of it by pressing Alt + Left-click drag (as shown.)

Now select all these copied layers and merged them by pressing Ctrl + E. Also give them a name according to your comfort.

Do same with the other outside face UVs too.

Step 35

Now select all three texture layers one by one and press Ctrl + J to duplicate the layer and then merge all three duplicate layers together, and hide the original layer.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/saturation, and also select the Colorize option in the Hue/Saturation pallet.

With the help of Hue/Saturation make it little bit brown.

Step 36

When you keep the UVs layer on top you have to adjust its opacity. Now open the rough fabric image and decrease its size by pressing Ctrl + T and Scaling it down. Then place it over the shoelace UVs.

Texture the shoelaces by making some copies as required, and then merge them. Rename the shoelaces layer as 'Shoelace'.

Then go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation, and also select Colorize in Hue/Saturation pallet. Make the shoelace a Brown color and press Ok.

Step 37

Now open the sole bottom image. Select the white area by using the Magic Wand tool and then press Ctrl + Shift + I, and now drag the image into the UVs file. As you can see only the sole is moved and the white area gets cut automatically. After that press Ctrl + T to free Transform the selection and then Right-click and Flip the sole horizontally to set it according to the sole’s UVs.

Select the sole as a transform selection, Right-click and choose Warp and adjust the middle part of the sole.

Delete the heel area.

Step 38

Drag the sole image again in the main UV file. This time delete the sole’s upper part except for the heel. Now texture the remaining heel part as you can see in the image below.

Use Hue/Saturation again to make the sole black.

Step 39

Take a New Layer and rename it as ‘Sole Side’. Take the Brush tool with a Black color. See the color palette and just copy the color values or change them as you like.

Colorize the areas with Black where the Red arrows are pointing in the image below.

Step 40

Now Create a New Layer for the logo and rename it the as ‘Logo’. Then choose this Grey color (shown below) for the whole logo. We can always change it later, if it doesn’t look good.

Step 41

I took a cream colored texture from my texture library to texture the inside area of the shoe.

I then placed the texture on the inside shoe UVs.

This is not the complete texture yet. I’ll show the rest in next steps.

Step 42

Now we have to texture the stitches on the shoe. For this I took an image with stitches from my texture library.

Step 43

Now open this image in Photoshop. Pick up the Quick Selection tool (where the red arrow is pointing.) Then with the help of the Quick Selection tool, select a stitch.

Move this stitch onto the texture file with the help of the Move tool.

Step 44

Press Ctrl + T for Free Transform selection. Do a Right-click on the selection and then click on 90 degree CW (clock wise.)

By Scaling down, decrease its size and place the stitch where you want to show stitches on the shoe.

Step 45

Now go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation, click on Colorize and then copy the values that you can see in the figure below. By doing this, we will change the color of the stitch to light Brown because our shoe texture is also Brown.

Step 46

Name this layer, as ‘Stitches’. Now copy this stitch and place every stitch like a queue by pressing Alt + Left-click and dragging.

As you can see it’s looking like stitches on leather.

Now select all the stitch layers and create a duplicate layer. Go to Layer > Duplicate Layer, then press Ctrl + E and Merge all the layers. Turn Off the visibility of the other stitch layers by pressing the Eye button on the Layers panel.

Press Ctrl + J to create a duplicate copy of the duplicated stitches layer. Then press Ctrl + T to Free Transform the selection, Right-click on the selection and Flip this stitch layer horizontally.

After then place the duplicated, horizontal flipped stitches layer on the opposite side of shoe UVs, as you can see in the figure below.

Similarly, we have to make more stitches wherever we need them.

Step 47

Now let’s apply the texture onto the shoe. First of all Save the texture in PNG or JPEG format. Back in Maya, Open Hypershade by going to Window > Rendering Editor > Hypershade. Double click on Blinn. You can see the Attribute Editor opened on the right side. Rename the Blinn as ‘shoe texture’.

Step 48

Now click on the Color Material Attribute box which I'm showing below with the Red arrow. Then the 'Create Render Node' window will open. Click on ‘File’.

As you can see the File Attribute is opened on the right side. Now click on the folder which I've marked with the Red arrow, to open the texture.

Assign the texture to the shoe. Similarly we have to take one more Blinn for the shoelaces because we’ll create a separate bump map for those. Therefore we need one more Blinn. We’ll apply the texture in the second Blinn and then we’ll apply the bump map into this Blinn.

Step 49

Select the shoe group and Delete the history. Then apply the smooth. You can check the texture with smoothness by pressing 3.

This is our textured shoe.

Step 50

Now we need to create a bump map for depth. Select all the visible layers and make a duplicate of them all, then merge them and rename it as 'Bump Map' and create a separate shoelace Bump map.

Just go to Image > Adjustment > De-saturate. Our bump map is now ready.

Do the same to create the shoelace Bump map also. Apply the Bump map and set the value of bump depth according to your wishes. I’m using -0.003. Please check the render that the bump map is working correctly or not.

There is no any effect on the stitches due to the Bump map. Now we will fix this problem.

Step 51

Take a duplicate copy of the stitches layer, by selecting the stitches layer and pressing Ctrl + J.

Keep the duplicate stitches layer on top.

Select the duplicate stitches layer, Ctrl + Left-click on the duplicate stitches layer’s thumbnail to get the path.

Step 52

Set the foreground color to White and then press Alt + Backspace to fill the stitches with the White color. After that press Ctrl + D to deselect the stitches layer.

Keep this layer on the old Bump map layer; don’t need to merge it with the old Bump map. Now save this Bump map in .jpg format.

Step 53

Now apply this bump onto the shoe in Maya. Just check the render to see how the Bump map is working. As you can see in the figure below, the stitches texture is going inside. You have to face this kind of problem in Maya sometimes, but don’t worry, just set the Bump Depth value to negative and then check the render again.

Now we can see that the Bump map is working. You can also set the Bump Depth value according to your wishes.

Step 54

Now let’s start the lighting part. For this I will make a simple studio type lighting setup with some global illumination attributes, final gather attributes and HDRI attributes. Before lighting make sure that your renderer is set to Mental Ray. For this go to Rendering Editors > Render Settings.

Step 55

This opens the Render Settings window. Set the Render Using the tab to Mental Ray.

Step 56

We need to set a camera angle now. For that we have to set a proper Perspective View first.

After that we will set a bookmark. If we somehow change the perspective view, the bookmark will help to call back the same camera angle again, which we had set earlier. Go to View > Bookmarks > Edit Bookmarks.

Click on Edit Bookmarks... It opens the Bookmarks Editor window where you can type the name in the Name column and then click on Apply.

Step 57

We need to change some of the material attribute values of the shoe.

Step 58

Now it’s time to place an HDR image. Go to the Render Settings tab and click on the Indirect Lighting tab. After that we have to enable the image based lighting. So click on the ‘Create’ button in front of the Image Based Lighting option.

Step 59

It opens the Attribute Editor, where you can get an HDRI browser in the Image Name options. Here you can browse to your desired HDRI image from the library.

Step 60

After that change the Hardware Alpha value from 0.500 to 1.000 as shown in the figure below.

I applied the HDRI onto a spherical dome which looks like this.

Step 61

Now it’s time to create lights in the scene. Here I will use 3 lights - key light, fill light and back light. I will place these lights in three different places in the view port with different values for their: lighting intensity, shadows and GI value. Now go to the Top View in the viewport.

Step 62

After that go to Create > Lights > Area Light and create an Area Light in the viewport.

By pressing the keys Shift+D, make 2 more copies of the same Area Light.

Step 63

I’ll then position the 3 different lights at different positions according to my bookmark. I also renamed these lights as key_light, fill_light and back_light respectively.

Step 64

Now select the first light (key_light) and open the Channel Box/Layer Editor and set the Translate, Rotation and Scale values according to the image below or according to your priorities in your case.

Then press Ctrl+A while selecting the 1st light. The Attribute Editor opens. Set the intensity 0.500. Turn On the 'Use Depth Map Shadows' with a resolution of 256 for the value. Filter size 20.

Under the Caustics and Global Illumination menu, turn on the 'Emit Photons' option with the Photons Intensity as 10000.000, Exponent as 1.500 and Global Illumination Photons as 20000.

Step 65

Now select the second light (fill light) and change the position attributes according to the following figure.

After that open the Attribute Editor and set the Intensity values to 0.200.

Step 66

Next select the third light (back_light) and change the position attributes according to the image.

Again open the Attributes Editor and change the Intensity values to 0.500.

Step 67

Now it is time to work on the Render Settings. Here we will turn on the GI (global illumination) and the FG (final gather.) With Final Gather, every object turns into a light source. So each object in the scene influences the color of its surroundings just like in the real world. Now turn on the Global Illumination in the Render Settings tab. And set the value of Accuracy, Scale color, Radius, and Merge Distance.

we also need to set the values for the Final Gather.

Now set the image size to 1K Square.

Now hit the Render button and you will see something like this. The render result may vary according to your setting of the lights and all.

Step 68

Now save the rendered image for composting later. But do not close the MAYA software. Because we also need an Ambient Occlusion pass. So render and save the Ambient Occlusion pass too. Now we will start compositing the render passes in Photoshop.

Step 69

Now open Photoshop again and import both images - the Master Render and the AO pass.

Step 70

Drag the AO pass layer into the canvas of the Master Render layer and put it at the top.

Step 71

Change the Blending mode of the AO Pass layer to ‘Multiply’. Make the AO pass layer a bit lighter with the help of Levels or the Brightness/Contrast filter. Add an exposure adjustment layer on/above the Master Render to make the image brighter. And also add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer for better contrast quality. You can always change the values of the filters anytime. And now your image is ready.

And this is the final image output. I hope you have enjoyed the full tutorial!