Painting Environments

tonyd927

Hey all,
I've tried following some vertex painting tutorials for 3ds max but they really dont make sense (500+ steps to achieve something that might not even work)
Can anyone point me in the direction of how to properly paint this mesh?

My questions are: would I unwrap this entire thing to fit in to 0-1 uv space, or can I just planar map the entire side of it?
How can I use a tiling texture but add some non repeating unique details to the texture map?

This terrain is being used in a 2d/3d sidescroller and I want it to have some unique details in the walls of the caves that I cant seem to be able to achieve using traditional mapping techniques in the 0-1 space. Im assuming texture/vertex painting will be needed ?

Mossbros

First things first, are you trying to simply paint the vertex's ? Or do you need to bake it down into a texture?

tonyd927

Mossbros wrote: »

First things first, are you trying to simply paint the vertex's ? Or do you need to bake it down into a texture?

Not sure what the differences are, but it needs to be used in game. so im assuming baking to texture?

Mossbros

The thing is vertex painting can be used in some engines without the need for a texture, like unity.

If you plan on only painting the highpoly and then putting the painted texture on to a low poly then you need to get the painting out the way first then think about baking.

To vertex paint in 3Ds Max you simply use the vertex paint modifier.

Justin Meisse

there are so many ways to approach this, I think you should do some heavy research and experimentation, I suggest reading up on it in the Polycount Wiki. It sounds like you're new to environment art as well, so don't expect it to be easy.

the majority of environment art involves tiling textures & going outside the 0-1 UV space. You can break up the tiling texture by texturing these assets with a tiling rock texture and using vertex blending to blend between multiple textures. You could also float detail on a plane just above the surface.

tonyd927

Ok I did some basic tiling, not liking how it's coming out so far.
The grass is a simple green rectangle just so I can experiment how it will tile.

tonyd927

in the pic can anyone throw me towards the right direction into how to get the grass to tile correctly? Thanks!

Eric Chadwick

Don't break your UVs into separate islands. The left and right sides of those elements don't match up, which causes tiling seams.

Instead use one planar projection for the whole length of the object. Tweak the UVs to ease the distortion, but keep it one solid UV element.

tonyd927

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Don't break your UVs into separate islands. The left and right sides of those elements don't match up, which causes tiling seams.

Instead use one planar projection for the whole length of the object. Tweak the UVs to ease the distortion, but keep it one solid UV element.

Yea this doesnt work because some areas require dirt and no grass, how do I vertex paint in Unity or max so I can paint my materials where I need them.

Eric Chadwick

You need a shader that supports vertex color blending. Both in 3ds Max (for creation) and in Unity (for display). Although I think there is a vc tool in the Asset Store, so you could do all the vc work in Unity.

In max, you use the Vertex Paint modifier.

tonyd927

I would like to have the highlighted items to have unique details without being noticably tileable..any suggestions?

Eric Chadwick

Have you tried decals? Geometry floating just above the ground, with a transparent shader.

tonyd927

That would be hard for the grass...I might try that. Thanks!

Eric Chadwick

Vertex blending would probably be better, performance-wise, because alpha blending is fairly slow to render.

But the default Unity shaders don't support the kind of vertex color blending that would work well here.

Here's an example
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1924774&postcount=24

More here
http://wiki.polycount.com/Multitexture