How do I texture a model in Maya using a tile set?
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This may be something weird to explain...
You see, I'm working on a video game that mimics the art style and graphics from the PS1. I did a deep research on it (limitations of the era, why the games looked like that, etc), and I found a lot of things of course. The texture size limit (256x256), the lack of perspective correction, the limited draw distance and the tricks they used to hide that (like the fog in Silent Hill), and many other things.
The development is going well so far, I'm genuinely very proud of the project itself!
However...a few days ago I ran into a...some kind of problem which I honestly can't understand very well.
So, when I did my research I found something very...curious.
Apparently, some models like buildings (a house, an structure), or roads or whatever...a city, due to lack of a better explanation, were textured using a tileset. I found a model from the original Silent Hill, and I started to analyze it.
And yep, it seems developers used a tileset as a texture for the model, and they put the UVs of each quad (the model was divided into many triangulated quads; as far as I know, they did that to avoid texture deformation once the camera get close to the model) coordinates to match each tile...I guess.
I don't know if I can share here a picture of the texture? But well...
Then, I opened up Maya and started making my own model with my own texture (now, a tileset). And goddammit it was f-in hard. I'm pretty sure I did everything wrong, I'm not the best at UV wrapping and texturing.
You know...it was a simple house, literally an f-in cube with some extruded faces to make doors and windows and that's all.
I mean, at the end I got what I was looking for, I manage to use the tileset and honestly the final model looked pretty good. But, as I said, I know I did it in the wrong way...a pretty horrific and nauseous way.
And...I literally move every single face to their respective "tile" in my texture. The grid from Maya's UV Editor didn't match with my texture (I used a guide in Photoshop to build the image), and also I was unable to modify the grid settings to make it match, so I needed to move every face and see if it matched with the tile. Yeah...it ended with a really messed up UV. Tons of faces overlapping each other...
It took me about 8 hours to finish it.
So...yep.
Again, I did a research and being honest, I didn't found anything about "tilesets" with Maya, so that's maybe why I ended up doing everything I did.
As the title suggest...how do I texture a model in Maya using a tile set?
I mean...the correct way.
There are a lot of tools in Maya, and I think it would seem stupid if none of them could be used for that. I believe there's an easier way to do this.
Replies
Unitize uvs on the model, scale them accordingly and use snapping to place them
Tilesets are usually called atlases these days which might help finding tutorials
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_atlas#Tutorials
To understand the workflow a bit more, see
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments
Also in particular this might interest you. It's a bit beyond PS1 spec, but the breakdowns should be helpful
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ModularMountAndBlade