It's based mostly on how much re-use the textures can support.
The chair textures for example can't be re-used on another model. The details are shape-specific.
One way to figure it out... think about making the asset, and whether it can use a tiling texture or not. If it can, then you can reuse the texture elsewhere.
Also a texture doesn't have to be tiled to be re-usable. It just needs to have details that aren't too specific to one particular mesh shape.
Helder Pinto's thumbnail sheet shows props that use both... some are uniquely textured, while others use tiled or re-usable textures.
Re-using textures is an important skill, as there is a strict memory limit in most games. Go over that limit, and the game slows down trying to load the new textures.
But there are some special cases. Lets say you have a few different tiling textures for different wall surfaces. Lets say you want to break up the tiled look. Here, you can use Decals, or some kind of texture blending, and the end result will look like there are "unique" textures, but actually they are simple tiled ones, with a trick to hide the tiling. The other thing is that maybe you can use more tileables, and less unique textures if you can use more geo / less normalmapped shapes, and advanced shaders (for texture blendings for example). So I would say the way you should do depends.
But in a "usual" case, you can apply the method from above.
It really changes on what kind of work you should do. Just make experiments and get more experience to make better decision. I made a lot of wrong decisions on our studio's mobile games but i learned a lot from them. Now i'm still learning and trying new workflows to make it better and more suitable.
For environment and similar assets i really love tor frick's workflow on modular environment tutorial from eat3d. It gives you control the make very different assets by vertex painting. If you have extra assets that you can't apply this workflow,just texture them uniquely. It's really hard to use only one type workflow to everything you make on a game.
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The chair textures for example can't be re-used on another model. The details are shape-specific.
One way to figure it out... think about making the asset, and whether it can use a tiling texture or not. If it can, then you can reuse the texture elsewhere.
Also a texture doesn't have to be tiled to be re-usable. It just needs to have details that aren't too specific to one particular mesh shape.
Helder Pinto's thumbnail sheet shows props that use both... some are uniquely textured, while others use tiled or re-usable textures.
Re-using textures is an important skill, as there is a strict memory limit in most games. Go over that limit, and the game slows down trying to load the new textures.
We compiled a bunch of texturing technique resources here.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Category:TextureTechnique
For example, check out
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_atlas
Right.
But in a "usual" case, you can apply the method from above.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/MultiTexture
For environment and similar assets i really love tor frick's workflow on modular environment tutorial from eat3d. It gives you control the make very different assets by vertex painting. If you have extra assets that you can't apply this workflow,just texture them uniquely. It's really hard to use only one type workflow to everything you make on a game.
http://eat3d.com/udk_modular