...texture is only skin deep

Oh I loved this lecture, but it confused the hell out of me at points as well. So far I've found that with Maya, 90% of the steps for any task are (once you know the basics) pretty easy to get a grasp of. It's the damn little 10% that makes everything fall apart!

When it comes to textures, the part I found the hardest was creating a 2D 'pattern' for the texture skin. Trying to blow out the edges so that when wrapping the texture, it was easier to hide seams. Trying to cut out the nails so they could be textured separately! After that, it came really easy but it's that one hard step that puts a halt to everything else. Pain really.

Once I'd managed to export my 2D 'pattern' to Photoshop it was just a case of painting it in anyway I wanted the texture to look. As it was a hand, it was fun trying to get all the realistic-ish details in (creases, dark/light, knuckles etc) and it was really nice seeing it ON a 3D moving object! I found it strange seeing how a 3D skin would look flattened - I guess that must be what it would look like if you skinned a human and turned them into a rug o_O

Oh well, if I don't make it in CG modelling, at least I can now make my Sims look sexy!