Unwrapping and texturing a house in 3DS Max

BigCapitalist

I am learning to build houses in Revit and one of my final projects about 3 months from now is to build a home and render the exterior. I would rather not use Revit to render it, I think using really nice materials and UE4 like an archviz project would look a lot better and be somewhat interactive. I have made other objects in 3DS Max and textured them but never an entire house, how would this be done?

Would I use a UVW Map or the usual unwrap if I want the textures to not look stretched or blurry? 



The picture above is something more simple I found that would probably be of similar complexity of a house that I would build. If you were to use this as a reference in Max how would you begin to break this down?

From what I understand so far, I would make the wooden railing and the Garage door, windows and gutters modular and create them as separate objects, but what about the roof and walls?

Thanks!

musashidan

For a large asset like this it's either tiling textures or modular pieces, or a mixture of both. Of course the windows/doors/etc can be unique.

What I will say though is that if going modular then I advise using dynamic lighting. You don't have to worry about overheads for a scene like this and you can completely avoid the inevitable hairloss that will result from having to arse around with lightmaps.

BigCapitalist

I have never textured anything this large, how would you add a tiled texture to it? Through a UVW unwrap?

musashidan

You can create an atlas texture and unwrap the building to suit the sheet. Unwrapping for tiling textures is very flexible and doesn't require you to stick to the usual rules of unique asset unwrapping. Have a read of this. From our very own Polycount Wiki
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_atlas

Eric Chadwick

Actually since this is an architectural visualization, the best bet is to use multiple tiling textures rather than an atlas texture. 

To UV it, start with UVW Mapping modifier set to Box mode, and scale the box sub-object to be a cube shape.

Then you can use Unwrap UVW to rotate and fine-tune parts that need it.

musashidan

I was thinking that @Eric Chadwick  but then thought atlasing might be a useful technique for the OP to learn.

BigCapitalist

 Would you happen to know of any video tutorials for something like this? 

My conundrum is that I know if I just uvw map the walls of a building I cant add mildew, dirt or any other environment details because it will just take that from one tile and add it to the next, how is this done?

musashidan

This is done by using deferred decals or vertex painting to blend multiple materials. Here's a vid from my YT channel on deferred decals;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyJaS-MF0OA&t=17s

And here's one on Vertex painting from Tech Art Aid YT channel;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dghCetkArJI

BigCapitalist

Thanks.

I tried using uww mapping Box mode and it gave me some strange errors, it did not seem to show the tile size on the faces when I set it to 2 meters. I did take it into substance painter to test it and the sides that I selected looked fine, however the top and bottom of the box where very strangely unwrapped and there were very tiny little tiles all over it. Box modifier if I add it to the whole thing only lets me add one texture to the model, and it has to be the whole thing, planar doesn't work either yet

I tired it with the full box and it worked but I guess it does not work with particular parts of the box?

like this:

How would I unwrap only the roof of the simple house shape for instance? so that I can add a tiled shingles texture or a stucco texture for the walls?

musashidan

Rather than using standard planar uvw mapping you need to actually unwrap the mesh using the unwrap uvw modifier. This will give you full control over your uv island placement. You can even stack all the islands that you want to have the exact same texture(or move them to adjacent tiles as UV space is infinitely tiling) and have the island that you want unique on a part of the atlas texture that features the dirt/mildew detail.

BigCapitalist

When you say move them to adjacent tiles do you mean multiple tiles? As in say 2 or 3 2048x2048 texture tiles for one model? I was not aware that was possible, how is that done?

BigCapitalist

If I remember though, when I unwrapped something this big it gave me texel density that looked bad. For instance when I unwrapped a house and added a tiled texture it looked "fuzzy" or not crisp. 

musashidan

Multiple tiles as in outside of 0-1 UV space. For a baking unique asset workflow you stick to 0-1 UV space, but for a tiling workflow you can move your islands anywhere. 0-1 tiles infinitely in UV space. You can scale them up as much as you like to gain texel res. Or you can scale the texture in the engine.