I need advice on art test!

Pimpek5555

Hi! I have a chance to work in a really good video game studio. The problem is I don't know how to texture big buildings. They gave me this reference and order me to model this house. Textures must be in 2k and work presented in Unreal and it must be photorealistic. Here is the issue: How to texture this house to maintain high quality and high resolution and keep it optimized? Should I texture it in ONE texture sheet? Or split into few sheets? Or maybe trim texture? Should I separate the model in parts? For example 1.roof 2.walls 3.windows? I really need advice on this guys. How should I approach this?

poopipe

Tileables, trim sheets and you can probably pack unique stuff into another map. 

Maintain a consistent texel density and pay attention to the scale of details

Pimpek5555

@poopipe Yes, thank you, this is the way to go, Trim sheet. But is there a scenario where a model like this would be done without trim sheets? 

poopipe

I can't think of a sensible one. 

You might choose to build the fence, windows, beams etc. out of unique meshes but you'll still need to use trims and tileables to cover the rest of it.

Don't confuse trim sheets with the sunset overdrive method that's been popular lately.  That's only a good idea in a very specific set of circumstances

Pimpek5555

@poopipe But texturing with trim sheet doesn't allow me to add details where I want but what do I know... If this is the standard than okay. Thank you for your advices

TheGabmeister

You can use deferred decals for those chipped paint on the walls. There's also a guide in Substance Academy on how to create such an effect in Substance Painter.

Ex-Ray

Pimpek5555 said:

@poopipe Yes, thank you, this is the way to go, Trim sheet. But is there a scenario where a model like this would be done without trim sheets? 

For games where this model is very low priority or where the player does not go up close to it, think background buildings in racing games, simulation games etc, where you want to keep it cheap so one material, low drawcalls and lower resolution texture is not an issue.

Trim sheet or atlas texture, with tiling texture, supported by layered materials or decals is the way to go. 

Pimpek5555

Thank you guys, this is all I needed.

poopipe

you'll usually have a shader that lets you paint vertex colour to switch between damaged and undamaged areas on tileables 

Pimpek5555

@poopipe I don't understand.... Is there any tutorial that covers the subject?

CrackRockSteady

https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/UI/LevelEditor/Modes/MeshPaintMode/VertexColor/index.html

You can also pretty easily find video tutorials on youtube and elsewhere, just google  "UE4 vertex blending" or similar