Tiling Texture Help

djgardner

Hello.
So I've been texturing my assets recently with unique UV's, however I've been reading around and a lot of people are talking about how using tiling textures for some props would work better for them.

I have concerns though, and I hope I can get them addressed so I have a better understanding for it.

The prop I've done which people say I should use tiling textures is below, along with my current diffuse.

Here are my concerns:
- How would I go about creating, AO, spec and normal maps for the metal if I tiled it?
- How would unique details like rust, chipped paint, etc, be added?
- What's the ideal map size for a texture to be tiled for a prop like mine?
- Would the prop look blurry or appear to have stretched UV's if I'm using a small map size for a prop that's as large as a person in game? (in reference to asset below)

Goat Justice

I would probably use a trims texture to do this prop with a tiled map.
Here's a quick cutup of you map for an example. It's mostly strips of different surface types that tile horizontally. good for something like this with a lot of long thin pieces of geo. You will probably want to make a dummy grid texture for unwrapping so you can make sure to give each surface type enough vertical space.

- How would I go about creating, AO, spec and normal maps for the metal if I tiled it?

You can either got the crazybump/xNormal/nDo route for normal maps or create a highpoly section of each trim and bake from that. In my experience you get the best normals by processing each strip individually. Spec map process doesn't really change much. AO is probably left out of anything but the unique bits. There are possible exceptions where a trim will always be mapped with the same side up, or has a textured in corner. You might be able to do AO on a 2nd UV channel and combine it in engine, or just let the scene lighting take care of it.

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- How would unique details like rust, chipped paint, etc, be added?

The texture already has quite a few repeated details. Hide them the same way you would with repeatedel ements of a 1:1 map. Shift the various strips left or right so repeated details aren't obviously next to each other in in easy line of sight.

- What's the ideal map size for a texture to be tiled for a prop like mine?

Depends on your target platform, engine, viewer perspective, etc. If unsure it's easier to author a size up and scale down if necessary. No real definite answer here.

- Would the prop look blurry or appear to have stretched UV's if I'm using a small map size for a prop that's as large as a person in game? (in reference to asset below)

Yeah... if the map is sized down too small the prop would look odd. The idea with tiling is to get a lot of coverage out of repeating a small map though. The tricky part of working with trims is getting their height measured out correctly. You can always tile more horizontally, but vertical space is limited. You'll end up having to add geo-cuts and uv seams if there isn't enough height in a trim strip to cover the Geo well.

Kinda quick answers, but hopefully this illustrates the method. It has limitations and drawbacks, but can definitely save texture space.