Basics of texture mapping concepts	Polygon Mapping	Using the UV Texture Editor	Mapping Harvey’s hand
Working with both procedural textures and external textures	Creating texture maps in Photoshop	Main

Here some steps I took to create the UV sets for mapping Harvey’s hand

The first step I took was deciding what level of detail I wanted and the color scheme. With Harvey, I wanted semi-realism but not photo-realism. So I created a short list of detail areas:

1. Fingernails
2. Finger joint folder (top)
3. Palm wrinkles
4. Discolored (lighter) portions along the left wrist (watchband protected the skin from sunburn for example).
5. No hairy arms or freckles
6. High yellow tones

Having reviewed my list, I set out to set up the UVs for these areas.

1. The first step for UV mapping was to get a generalized layout. So I selected the geometry and hit Automatic Mapping (Edit Polygons > Texture > Automatic Mapping).

2. This gave me a pretty good layout (lucky) but I need to set up the detail areas like the finger joint folds.

3. Next I selected each finger and created a cylindrical projection and moved the new projection off the original creation point in the UV Texture Editor. Some UVs were flipped and overlapping themselves, so I rotated them until they were no longer overlapping.

4. I continued this process until I have UV mapped all the fingers, the back of the hand, the palm and the wrist.

5. Next I scaled and moved all the UV sets back into the top right quadrant.

6. I output the faces as a texture map use the UV Snapshot function (UV Texture Editor window, Polygons > UV Snapshot) using 256x256 resolution, white color value and a Targa format.

7. In Photoshop, I scanned my hand to get the appropriate textures I needed for this surface (why draw it when you already have it at hand?).

8. I made the outline layer (the UVs I just set up) as a locked layer. You never want to work on the same layer an your UV sets! I renamed this layer to UVs.

9. Next I labeled each region as to what it was.

10. I created another layer and moved it underneath the UV sets. I then flooded this layer with the base color of the hand and renamed the layer to base-color.

11. Next I took my scans of my hand and manipulated them to work with the image size of the arm UVs.

12. Periodically, I saved the layered file as a Photoshop PSD.

13. I bounced back and forth from Maya and Photoshop to make sure I was detail the right areas (the edge of the middle finger for the fingernail, the middle edge of the index finger for the skin folds, etc.).

14. Once I was done drawing up the details of the hand, I saved the file one last time with all the layers as a PSD. Then I turned off the UV layer and flattened everything disregarding the hidden layers. I saved the file as a Targa with 24-bit color depth. I named the file arm_R_map02.tga.

15. And finally, I went back into Maya and linked my shader to this new file. From here, I can use the same UV map to lay my bump map, specular map and anything else I may need for this project.