Modular or single mesh building 3ds Max?

Asim7

Hi, not sure if this is the right place for this thread? So sorry about that

I want to make a cartoony Sly Cooper like building, something like these ones.
http://i.imgur.com/4FDW0wK.jpg

Should i make it a single model, or a modular build set? And any tips on what to do?

Thanks

Oh and it's for Unity Game Engine.

Jarran

always go modular
that way, for example, you could build one of the few different types of windows and place them wherever rather than rebuilding them every time. That means youll only have to build one mesh, unwrap it once, texture it once rather than doing them repeatedly.

Same goes for the buildings, they're all very similar so just make pieces of them and then place them wherever you want kind of like lego.

hope that helps

Asim7

Jarran wrote: »

always go modular
that way, for example, you could build one of the few different types of windows and place them wherever rather than rebuilding them every time. That means youll only have to build one mesh, unwrap it once, texture it once rather than doing them repeatedly.

Same goes for the buildings, they're all very similar so just make pieces of them and then place them wherever you want kind of like lego.

hope that helps

It does, thanks alot

Yea i can definantly see how it would be easier to just create 1 window, and then unwrap the frame to use for all of 'em. And then unwrap the glass and just copy it 3-4 times, that way i could have 4 different windows with just 1 unwrap and 3-4 copies of the glass

But what about the building itself, it's quite bendy and odly shaped. Would you make modular walls, pillars etc? Or a whole segment, like a modular lower part/floor and then middle and upper?

Thanks for the help though, looking forward to try it out

Eric Chadwick

Since it's bendy, I would first make modular pieces that snap together nicely. This will give you better texture resolution, and save you time.

Then, snap a whole building together out of those pieces, in your modeling program, and bend the building here and there to get that bendy look, then import the whole building into Unity.

Do the same process for each building, creating them out of modular pieces, deforming them, then importing as whole buildings.

Alternatively, you could probably use a vertex shader in Unity to deform them. This will take some experimentation, but you may be able to assemble them in Unity, then do the deformation there with the shader.

This is a screenspace shader, but it's related and should give you some ideas.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kY4v-L3rvY[/ame]

Asim7

Thanks for the tips

Ok it seems that everything modular is the way to go, very good idea about deforming it all after i'v modeled and unwrapped it.

Well i think im ready to start, just need to return home tomorrow

Thanks for the help