Texturing a high polygonal cave

ibbprakt

I currently work at a project where I have to recreate a mine/cave in 3D. As a starting point I got a highres mesh produced by a laser scanner of all the tunnels. There are holes and gaps here and there in the mesh, but apart from that it's fine.

But I have difficulties texturing the whole thing. Coming from another company, where I was only responsible for the typical assets/props and never having done an environment before, I have no idea what the best approach is. I've created a few tileable stone textures and tried UV-Mapping the highres mesh, but that seems painful and tedious to do.

What would you do?

Angry Beaver

Natural environments, especially caves are hard to UV well, myself? If the engine supports it (UDK) I usually resort to blended textures with different UV maps. So I map one rock texture as best as i can but producing some seams. Then I start up a new UV set and do the same but so that I cover all my previous seams and only place seams where there wasn't a seam before. Then I blend between the two only leaving the non seam locations. Some people don't like how muddy this can make the rocks look but if you can texture your blend with a pattern that solves the issue smoothly.
If the engine doesn't support it (Source) I usually try and make a rough facimily out of properly U/Vd panels which I then push and pull into something approaching the right shape ensuring I don't stretch too much and if I do then to use things like stalgimites/stalgtites/rocks to cover the ugly bits.