All in one textures or separate ?

Nesmos

Hey, I'm quite new to texturing and modelling in general but I like to think i know the basics but theirs always been a question I've wanted answered but couldn't find it.

I have a model, all together i find it difficult to texture and unwrap but if i separate parts from the model to their own model I find it much easier unwrapping and making a texture for each separate part. 

My question is, 
Is this a bad thing to do ? to texture it separately should i learn to unwrap the whole model together ? 

I apologise if this has been answered somewhere but i can't seem to find the wording to search for this question. 

vertex_

Nothing wrong with that, but if you're targeting a game engine then you'll want to eventually combine your UVs onto one sheet before export. Make sure that after combining, your UV shells are scaled uniformly.

musashidan

Each individual texture in a game engine is a draw call. That's why people channel pack textures and use atlases. So yes, by all, means, if you're more comfortable breaking an object into multiple parts, unwrapping, and re-combining to a single texture sheet then go ahead, it's a perfectly common workflow.

Nesmos

Thanks a lot for the replies, I'm glad to know that its a commonly used workflow. 

Eric Chadwick

FWIW we have some more info here
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_atlas
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ChannelPacking