Efficient UV for Modular Pieces

Devon M

Hello. So I've created a Victorian style house in Maya 2016 using modular pieces. 

My goal is to use these same pieces to make multiple, unique buildings. 

Currently, everything in my scene has its own unique 0-1 UV sheet. Everything is UV'd correctly to fit its own 0-1 sheet.

(link to screenshot of my scene)
http://puu.sh/mq7pX/cacc1ca0fa.jpg

My question is this:

Should I put ALL of my assets into a 0-1 UV sheet?
Should I put groups of assets (windows, doors, posts, etc.) into multiple 0-1 UV sheets?
Should each individual asset get its own 0-1 UV sheet?

This is the first time I've made a scene with so many modular pieces, and I don't know which is the best route to go, as far as UVing them. 

If my question can be answered, AWESOME. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. If anyone could, please, explain why you chose the answer you've given. I would love to understand the thought process behind the given suggestion. 

Thank you once again.

Bek

There are tonnes of variables so you're going to have to decide whether you want to maximise modularity (lower cost) or maximise unique detail. In reality you're going to be doing a bit of both, because some parts will work better with one method over another. For example, if you were to uniquely map the large flat faces of the roof or awning you'd need a fairly large texture to maintain a consistent texel density. Instead you could use a smaller tiling texture and extra geometry to blend between textures/material using vertex painting (depending on your engine/shader etc).

For other things like the four vertical posts, you could have them as one modular piece with the one unique uv map/textures and rotate them in increments of 90 degrees so then you're looking at all four from the one angle you won't be seeing the same faces and the same unique details repeated. This also seems like a good choice because in a first person scenario the player could, presumably, see them extremely close.

As for how much should go on the one texture sheet, that's a tricky one. I'd say it depends firstly on how much modularity each piece has - will any pieces ever be used without the rest of the structure? If so you'd want them to be on their own sheet, it wouldn't be ideal to load up large textures only to actually use 10% of their total space. Environments artists will probably be able to point out some other considerations / tehniques for increasing a textures reusability but those are the basics as I understand it. It'd probably help to explain in what context the prop/s will be used as things relevant to an FPS pc title won't be relevant to an isometric console point&click adventure.

Devon M

BEK, thank you so much for your insight and advice. I hope friendly advice keeps coming.