Should my UV's go beyond the 0,1 space for a level?

Patrick_McAllister

I am unsure about how I should be laying out my UV's for a level that I am modeling out in 3DS Max. When I am laying out my UV's for my walls, floors, and ceiling should I be scaling them up so they are outside of the 0,1 space or should I have all of my UV's scaled down to fit within the 0,1 space? 

Also is it better for larger models like a whole level to use multiple map channels? 

I plan to move this level into Unity when I am done with it.

Thanks,

- Patrick

NoRank

If you're going to use tileable textures, then there is no problem in scaling it outside the 0,1 space. The only thing it will change is the amount of tiling the texture will be across the surface.

Zack Maxwell

Keep texel density in mind when doing that. Don't want to accidentally make something way higher resolution than it should be.
I believe that is a common technique when working with tiling textures.

radiancef0rge

Yes. Very typical. http://polycount.com/discussion/91105/infamous-2-and-festival-of-blood/p2 last post is how most buildings are textured these days. 

Patrick_McAllister

Thanks for the advice everyone. I spent a lot of time yesterday reading up and learning about Texel Density. I believe I am starting to understand how I should be texturing my walls and floors of my level.

Came across this "tutorial" (more or less) that really explains the subject of Texel Density well.

http://leonano.com/portfolio/texeldensity/

- Patrick

Zack Maxwell

Patrick_McAllister said:

Thanks for the advice everyone. I spent a lot of time yesterday reading up and learning about Texel Density. I believe I am starting to understand how I should be texturing my walls and floors of my level.

Came across this "tutorial" (more or less) that really explains the subject of Texel Density well.

http://leonano.com/portfolio/texeldensity/

- Patrick

The important bits aren't very complicated.

Let's say you have a single 2k texture, and two models of a flat plane that are both the same size.

The UVs on one plane are laid out to cover the entire texture.

The UVs on the other are squashed down to cover only half.

Since the actual plane models are the same size, the second plane would have half the texel density.

If the second plane were also half the size, then they would both have the same texel density.

The important thing about them is to keep the texel density as uniform as possible across your scene.

Not doing so makes things look bad.

If you have two models and one is half the size of the other, the smaller model should either have half the texture resolution, or half the UV space occupied.

Also, as a bit of an aside, a 1k texture would actually be a quarter of the size of a 2k texture, not half. Since it has both the horizontal and vertical size.

Patrick_McAllister

Yeah I think I pretty much got it now. Thanks for the help. There may be some other questions down the road but I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.