Home Technical Talk

The best method for applying a texture...

polycounter lvl 4
Offline / Send Message
oraeles77 polycounter lvl 4
Here is a scene I am working....




Today I was doing the conduit cables for the lights...



I have made similar scenes loads of times before over the last 3/4 years but I havent had any chance to ask questions to professionals.

With the lights/signboard and a few other objects in the scene such as the tracks I have unwrapped them carefully laid them out grouped certain objects to save space and textured them individually in Substance Designer then exported the results as either maps or sdsar files to Unity5.

However with the station wall I made a tile texture and just dragged it in.

1) I dont know the words to describe those two methods... a texture UV which is specially made for an object it has dirty edges and damage etc, or an object which just has a tiled texture dropped on it.

2) with the conduit cable things, I could carefully unwrap them, bake several maps then make a texture to fit them, which due to the size of them, they will look shit and pixilated, so sure its better I just do a 'quick unwrap' in Blender regardless if parts of the cables are overlapping etc and export it, then just drag in any suitable metal material?

any suggestions?

Replies

  • [Deleted User]
    Offline / Send Message
    [Deleted User] insane polycounter
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • oraeles77
    Offline / Send Message
    oraeles77 polycounter lvl 4
    you could try making a modular kit - nicely textured parts that snap together on grid:  

    An example:
    https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kwQZy
    im not asking about how to make modular stuff, Im asking about texturing thanks.
  • [Deleted User]
    Offline / Send Message
    [Deleted User] insane polycounter
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • oraeles77
    Offline / Send Message
    oraeles77 polycounter lvl 4
    It's pretty unclear what you're asking.



    2) with the conduit cable things, I could carefully unwrap them, bake several maps then make a texture to fit them, which due to the size of them, they will look shit and pixilated, so sure its better I just do a 'quick unwrap' in Blender regardless if parts of the cables are overlapping etc and export it, then just drag in any suitable metal material?
  • [Deleted User]
    Offline / Send Message
    [Deleted User] insane polycounter
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • oraeles77
    Offline / Send Message
    oraeles77 polycounter lvl 4
    yeah that's not great English sorry.  But it sounds like you have some kind of plan why not just try it out.

    well i was wondering if those two particular methods of applying a texture have a name, cause I dont know anything. also I was wondering if one is recommended over the other. but if you cant answer that dont worry about it.
  • Larry
    Offline / Send Message
    Larry interpolator
    They look pixelated because of your resolution size. You unwrap them into 0-1 uv space, but how big is your unwrap? What size is your texture? Can u post a picture of the 'careful unwrap' you did? Also, pixelation might occur in normal maps if your smoothing groups are different from your uv shells. 
  • Mirbobo
    Yeah, I'm guessing the actual question here is about texel density and of when to use unique texture vs tiling textures.
    Generally you pick a texel density based on your limitations and use case. Say a 1024 pixel per meter for a modern FPS for example, after this you unwrap and create your textures/materials following this guideline. This ensures that most of the objects in the scene share same texture quality.
    Less textures and materials generally means better performance, but using tiling textures on props also usually sacrifices some of the quality that you could achieve by using a unique texture, so you need to balance that depending on your needs and targets.
Sign In or Register to comment.