Strategies for UV mapping Buildings

Ruz

so I have been trying out some environment work. last stuff i did was in about 2005 lol

In terms of uv strategies, i am always keen to have everytihng unwrapped properly, but since there are so many

elements, how do i progress

I was thinking of splitting it in to main building( which has 3 textures/materials), awnings, signpost and then each accessory could have it own uv space

so i can reuse them

the pavement/road will have its own uv's/textures also

If I optimize this a lot then would have to tile the actual texture and not scale up the uv's ( i think)

Back in  the day i would just use squares and then copy and paste texture to each uv square

I could then if required do a second uv set and bake it out

Not sure really, any advice would be appreciated

still have to add loads of electrical stuff on the side of the building, which would be another element to contend with

I am mainly concerned with efficiency overall

Obscura

Just assign separated materials on the different surfaces. You can set up basic uvs but packing them like so is not necassary, maybe only if you want a unique ao bake. But this is actually rare. It does not worth it as usually ssao or lets go scifi, rt gives convincing result.

However, having a unique layout as a secondary uv is still useful. You can use it to blend in another materials in concave areas. Lets say leaks or dust or dirt.

Otherwise the uvs can be all over the place as tiling materials (which is mostly used) don't require exact placement.

Multilayer materials and decals are a hot topic these days in environment art. Thats how you would fancy up a boring tiling material in realtime these days.

Ruz

I kind fo get the gist of what you are saying Obscura, there just seem to be so many different mehtods  amd most tutorials seem to be from 7 years ago

My plan was to use tiling textures to make it look basically right, then bake  everything to a unique layout like I have above.

i guess though i would use a texture atlas to tile from, not individual tiled textures

then I could add unique non tiling details on the final unwrap to make it less boring. maybe the texture would look too low res then , not sure

will do some more research on this - why is nothing in 3d easy eh?

Kanni3d

@Ruz

You seem to be on the right track I think it'd be a good idea to just look into texel density. This will be when you can really see how your UV's will be scaled way past the 0-1 UV grid, and have plenty of shells all over the place/overlapping. 

Obscura

Why would you bake it down at the end? You should add the unique details as decals and vertex paints.

Ruz

@Obscura, ah ok, just me being anal about the the whole thing, I like my uv's to look tidy and 'readable' if possible

whne you say decal. you mean simple transparencies? like for adding posters on walls etc

i am guessing also @Kann3d that you have to scale the uv shells past 0-1 to tile rather than tiling the texture?

Kanni3d

@Ruz
Both accomplish the same result, but I think it's far easier to set your uv's at a certain scale/texel density, which is based on the resolution of said tiling texture.

Obscura

No I mean deferred decals.

Obscura

And not just posters but also dirt, leaks etc.

Udjani

https://80.lv/articles/ Have a lot of articles in this subject and they always have new things.

Also keep an eye on free stuff from unreal marketplace. You can get some great stuff to learn from. 

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/modern-city-downtown-with-interiors-megapack
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/modular-building-set
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/c26355353df843289701d632508d4fb0

Ruz

cool, cheers for the advice guys, will look in to it some more.

I am really put of the loop, comes with old age:)

Eric Chadwick

We have good tutorials on the modular page. Blending together tiled textures is still very very relevant.

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

Ruz

Cheers Eric, kind of getting back in to it.

I dug out some work I did on sydney stadium from 2005 and that  really helped

I had actually forgotten most of what i knew then , weird

WIP  still needs loads of work , but i am enjoying it more now at least

Kanni3d

It's always super cool to see 3d stuff from what seems to be ages ago, but is really only 15 years. Keep it up, it'll all come flooding back to you

Ruz

cheers kanni3d, yes i am having fun with it and its odd how all of sudden things come back to you, the more you dig