Help with texel density and modular environment

i_am_aimone

Hi all,
I need some help on figuring out what will be the best way to approach a test I received. The test is a not-so-hard environment with a texel density of 128 px/m. I can get the right density with a script for 3ds max but what to do when it comes to modular pieces? The UV become so small that the textures can't be used to tile because the borders of my UV island doesn't match the corner of the UV shell. Does anyone have a workflow for modular pieces and texel density? Thanks in advance.

zachagreg

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments

Try to help yourself first

i_am_aimone

I know how to make a modular environment but for this particular case I don't know how to make a tileable piece which maintain the same texel density as the others because the uv are becoming really tiny at 128 px/m so I can fill all the space of the UV shell.

zachagreg

What exactly is the tiling issue? I'm having hard time visualizing why working with a small UV shell would be inherently difficult. Is there a screenshot you can share. As far as I'm aware a UV island is the same as a UV shell also so I can't discern what exactly you're trying to line up? 

Are you using a 128x128 image as your tiling texture? If so the texel density on your UV layout should be one to one since UVs are independent of image resolution.

Here's something to look at in the meantime though maybe it will help.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qbOqP

musashidan

Are you using an atlas? A trim sheet? A channel packed tiling texture? Give something to go off. Some screenshots.

i_am_aimone

One of the geometries is this. 



If I will make a fully tileable piece I have to do the UV as you see down here, with the edges touching the square. So i can make multiple copies on the right/left of my object and I won't see any seam.



But when it comes to adjust my UV size to make it 128 px/m it shrinks down as you see.



Maybe is just my lack of knowledge, so I apologize if the question is very easy, but really I don't understand how to make my piece of geometry tileable on both sides. Do you suggest to model the entire building and after do the UVs as a whole?

Thanks in advance.

musashidan

Are you modeling to real world scale? If your 0-1 uv space is 1m2 and your pillar is only about 400mm tall when scaled to texel res then your scale must be off.

As for trying to snap all the modular border uvs to the edge of 0-1 you're looking at it the wrong way. With tiling textures you take advantage of the infinite tiling, so you unwrap all the modular pieces and stack and snap them together in uv space using the same edges that snap together in the geometry. You don't have to worry about 0-1 you can go anywhere.

i_am_aimone

I suppose your saying this. Merging all the edges of every uv island. For this project this seems to work, I will figure out how to do when it comes to modular pieces. Because I can't for every project lose time snapping and merging together every uv seam. Thanks for your help, I really appreciated that.

musashidan

Well, this is one of the ways it's done. That's why modular kits are often designed with seams in mind, using pillars, beams, columns, construction joints from the real world, etc to hide the seams. You should really do some more research and planning on how modular kits are built and textured before going any further. This will save frustration and lots of time in the long run.