How to Install Roadkill in Maya

You can use Roadkill within Maya to unwrap 3D objects for precision texturing.

Roadkill is a standalone application that meshes smoothly with Maya to provide you with high-speed accurate high polygon 3D mesh unwrapping for texture mapping purposes. While installation of the file is a simple matter of downloading and extracting the setup files, Maya itself needs to be set up in order to use Roadkill as a plugin. Once the settings are in place, the unwrapper works seamlessly within Maya, with the unwrapping process performed by Readkill to create a nice flat surface for texturing according to your modeling needs.

Instructions

1. Download the Roadkill installation file to an installation directory on your hard drive.

2. Open the "Start" menu and then click "Computer" to open Windows Explorer. Navigate to the hard drive directory in which you saved the Roadkill installation file.

3. Right-click on the Roadkill installation file and select "Extract to" in the pop-up menu to extract the zipped contents of the Roadkill installation file into the directory.

4. Double-click the extracted Roadkill installation file to install Roadkill onto your computer.

5. Start the Maya 3D modeling and animation application.

6. Load a model into Maya using the "File" menu that you wish to unwrap using the Roadkill plugin.

7. Click "Window" in the main menu then select "Settings/Preferences" and then "Preferences." Highlight the "Polygons" selection in the "Categories" box, then place a checkmark in the box labeled "Texture borders" and input the number "4.0" in the box labeled "Edge Width."

8. Open the "Polygons" menu, then choose "Edit UVs" and select "UV Texture Editor" to bring up the available texture editors. Select "Roadkill Organic" to unwrap the model using the Roadkill plug-in.

References

• Pullin Shapes: Roadkill UV Tool
• Roadkill Pro: Roadkill Professional User's Guide Maya Manual

Resources

• Autodesk: Maya -- 3D Animation, Visual Effects and Compositing Software