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Re: UV layout

I created this for someone else's thread, but It is applicable here:
The left side is ideal, it's a lot easier to work with, identify and texture. While the right is a lot harder, doesn't fit the UV space as well and it will be harder to prevent a visible texture seam

You want to straighten out your UVs because one thing we always have to deal with in games in working with limitations. Even with 2048 or 4096 texture sheets, pieces and their resolution can get small. A pixel is always a square, so when you line up things horizontally or vertically you're ensuring that the pixels are coming across the cleanest way possible, and it helps with detail texture orientation as they are always either going horizontal or vertical. Lining things up like this can cause distortion, but sometimes you can make distortion work for you rather than against you.

I generally like to make sure the verts of an unwrapped of a cylindrical object are lined up as well. Say you have a UV seam going down the inside of the leg, I like to make sure the verts along that seam line up horizontally or vertically as it can help with texture seams. I'll still relax the geo inside of the shape

Alemja

4 ·

Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2025

been working on an abstract scene in unreal

daphz

4 ·

Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | May - June (96)

I'm almost done with it. I need to import it in Unreal, I'll figure out what I want to do for the liquid in the vials and put a glass on the top section and it will be finished.

Grindy

4 ·

Re: BRAWL2 [Character] Electric Monk, kanga

More stuff

kanga

3 ·

Re: UV layout

UVs for game art is actually not just about cramming things into a single sheet ; it is also and just as importantly about :

- Making the UVs human-readable so that another artist can take care of the texturing (even if the texturing is driven by masks). Meaning, orienting the islands the right way up and grouping parts in a way that makes them as instantly identifiable as possible. Furthermore, orienting the various panels vertically and horizontally allows for maximum clarity of decals and graphics since they would then naturally follow the orientation of pixels.

- Taking into account the fact that the asset needs to behave well when the texture is downresed. Therefore having the appropriate amount of padding around the islands.

Here are some examples extracted from MGS4 (Raiden, Raven, Wolf), Overwatch (Tracer, WidowMaker, Vampire Reaper), Valorant, Zenless Zone Zero, Deadlock, and Arms. These span over 3 generations of hardware and a buch of art styles, showing that things really haven't changed at all over the last 10+ years or so besides the generational increases in texture resolution. In your specific case (futuristic spacesuit) you could probably find some good reference by looking up assets from Death Stranding, Horizon Zero Dawn, or any recent scifi shooter really.

While automatic packing can have its uses, it definitely takes a backseat in favor of the above factors in practice. If anything if two applicants had superficially similar portfolios but one used automatic packing on everything while the other shows care for manual UVs, the preference would go for the one demonstrating manual UVs as it tends to mean that the artist has more production experience under the belt.

(FYI, since this thread is not related to Substance but rather to modeling in general, "Tech talk" would have been the appropriate place and would get you more views. Or if you want to journal your progress on this piece and get help and advice along the way, it could go in "3D art showcase and critique").