Unwrapping ready for Quixel

TomWoodArt

Hi there,

 I have a few questions about the unwrapping workflow in preparation for using Quixel. After importing a model I created into Quixel I have now seen that because the program uses tileable textures and not polypainting where I have a break in UV islands the textures don't match up. For example using the brick wall material in Quixel, I want to the bricks to bend round a corner and still align. But because I have my islands split apart they don't align and I can't figure out how to fix this using the program.

So, do I have to keep hard edges on my UV map connected and not break them off into individual islands?
And is it OK to have stretching on my UV map? For instance: For an arch surrounding a window. I want the brick again to align on the front part of the arch as well as the outside of the arch and the inside of the arch. So do I keep them edges attached together and have the inside and outside faces distorted and stretched in the UV map? I can't figure out a better way.

Thanks a lot in advance

An example. In the image the highlighted area is where the glass will be. Everything else is brick. Is the unwrap there the correct way for Quixel? In substance painter I would have them all broken up. 

TomWoodArt

Just tested it in Quixel and that's definitely not how to do it. It's obviously incredibly stretched

musashidan

Firstly, your UVs are not correctly unwrapped. You are trying to planar map across a 90degree corner, which is impossible in relation to distortion(which can be seen in your checker) You would have to break those into separate islands at the corner.

For what you're trying to achieve you would need projection mapping/painting which I don't believe QS has.(maybe I'm wrong on this) For this scenario you would be better off exporting the tiled textures from QS and aligning your UVs to the texture back in Max. You can do this by selecting the texture in the UV editor dropdown(where it says checker pattern) and choosing your brick texture. That way you can eyeball it in the viewport as you move the islands around to align the mortar joints.

Synaesthesia

Unwrapping for DDO or NDO is just like unwrapping for any other tool set or engine. All you'll need to do is ensure that you have minimal stretching (which should be easy in this case) and lay out your UVs with equal texel density so there's no mismatch between shells.

Musashidan is correct; we currently do not have projection mapping. The way your UVs are currently laid out would need adjustment even if we did utilize it. Neither DDO or NDO can correct for that much stretching, and there's no tool that I'm aware of which would fix the pixel distortions caused by skewed/stretched UVs.

Quixel has a company presence here on Polycount in our SUITE subforum: http://polycount.com/categories/quixel-suite - feel free to join us!

NAIMA

Put seams into dark areas where the AO would fill in .

For perfect seams instead you can paint the base texture directly in an external program like mudbox.