Learning asset topology uv space amount per asset.

GarethStandfield

Heya everyone, was wondering were is a good place to see in game assets in action, meaning right now i am modeling a floor panel an was wondering for something that would be repeated over several parts of a map what would be a good way to judge how much topo and UV map size too one tile. 



Currently the floor i have sits at around 1.5k polygons which feels extremely high so might want to bake it down somehow into another flat plane but seeing how thats done in a real working game would most likely give a better understanding along with how to approach other assets.

cheers.

Alex_J

You got the right idea. You can use your game engine or something like Marmoset Toolbag to start answering questions like that. The earlier the better, I think.

One of the first things I do on a new project is get a Toolbag scene setup with roughly the lighting situation I plan on using, and then you can just start taking your blockouts into there -- gauge your proportions -- then take your first texture passes in there -- gauge how the colors and whatnot are gonna look, etc. It's actually really important because all the programs you'll be using have sligthly different lighting and camera situations, so you want to be sure that you are building for that final render engine. No surprises.

You could use Unity or Unreal, both free to use and have plenty of free tutorials online to get you familiar with bringing content in and setting things up. You could take your hi poly floor and just duplicate it around as is to get a feeel, and also bake it ounto a plane which you then tile to get a feel for those results as well.

GarethStandfield

Yer using UE4 and substance, going to try baking this down into a nice lower plane and see how it takes textures, if it does not look good ill texture the high Polly then bake it down with the textures to see if it looks better, not sure if i can do that but... worth a shot. Im thinking a 1k map should be alright for a floor panel an will use the method to make the rest of the connecting bits. Lots to learn!

musashidan

There is a LOT of triangulation optimisation that you could do in the floor piece. Also, it's an identical mirror so you could delete half and have it as a 2:1 ratio mesh rather than square. This would also half the texture size. Looking at it you could get the vert count down to a quarter of what it is now.

Also, it's very important to get your assets in-engine as soon as possible to evaluate scale/silhouette. Toolbag is great, but you want to get into an environment like UE4 so you can run around, interact,  and properly experience the space as the player would.