Sometimes you’re in a position where you want to transfer texture maps from one mesh to another. It’s fairly simple to do, but requires the materials in Maya to be setup correctly in order to avoid any shading issues.
Rendering Window | Lighting/Shading > Transfer
Load your target mesh and source mesh, changing the target mesh’s search envelope % to 0.5.
Add whichever maps you want to render, I usually just choose the diffuse, if I’m transferring texture, although sometimes I’ll also make a normal map.
Choose “use maya common settings” and then in the Maya common output tab, World Space, Filter Size 3, and for the best detail map set Map width and height to 4096 and then manipulate it in Photoshop. I always set my sampling quality to high, but I’ve looked at it on low and high and can’t see too much difference.
Now for the maps. In your Hypershade, create a Lambert. Load your texture into the incandescence and diffuse slots and set your Color to black. Change Translucence, Translucence Depth, and Translucence Focus to 0. Open up Matte opacity and change it to Solid Matte. Apply this new material to your source object.