Half-Timber Houses question

Saidin311

Half-Timbered houses aren't highly original however they are pretty common in medieval architecture.

My question is how does one texture these types of buildings.
wiki picture if anyone doesn't know what these buildings are.


I'm building 3 or 4 of these in a street like area, and I want to use tileable textures with decals/overlays for dirt and to break up the tile. But its the wood timber thats bugging me. Do I make a tileable texture for that as well? Or do I unwrap the wood board as a seperate 'trim' object and copy that around the building?

Currently I'm using the timber trim/boards as a floating geo element of the building object. But I'm thinking this is inefficient as I'm going to have to go around and map every board.

I'm making these buildings to go in unreal 3 so the detail level should be pretty high. Perhaps I should unwrap and texture each building uniquely?

The timber trim on these buildings bugs me as its a hurdle I can't wrap my head around. Is there a trend or standard for texturing this type of building?

Eric Chadwick

I'd say create a set of wall sections, each maybe 1/1 wall height/width. One with a window, one with a door, one with a chimney, a blank, etc. Use floating geo for the boards, lay them into each wall section. Then just lego the prefab sections together in the editor, mix n match for each house.

You'll probably want corner beam prefabs. Also overhang prefabs, etc.

You might pack 3 or 4 board bitmaps into one bitmap atlas, not tiled since you probably want some top/bottom difference along the board, or top-bottom tiled if you like.

A couple ideas.

Saidin311

Ah, good call. I'm working with prefab building sections, some of the buildings stick out a bit so I've done some sidewalls as well.

I didn't think about putting more than one board on the same sheet. That almost makes too much sense hah. Adding multiple textures to one sheet might work for other things like the iron work (signposts, lamps etc.)

Thanks for the lightbulb Eric.

motives

hmm i would just go with one detailtexture for the plaster and one for the wood and then overlay a baked occlusion + possibly a grimy/dirt texture in the shader.

honestly, how much work is it to texture a board? 4 seconds?