Unwrapping a complex object on a single sheet

cmdrDsig

HI

I'm having a hard time with a project I'm working on. I've got this object I created that I need to texture for a school exam, the instructions are to use a 2048x2048 texture maximum.



So to do that, I unwrapped everything on a single sheet, but here's the problem, it's a mess.


I tried to fill as many of the holes and gaps as I could, but at some point it became way too tedious and I'm on a tight deadline. The issue really is that, obviously, some of these shells are really small. And on a 2048 map the bake just looks nasty. The padding also is an issue, but if I up the padding then the small shells get even smaller...

This is how the bake looks on a small piece, the bigger pieces come out "ok".


Any ideas on how I can work on this ? Am I stuck within my "one 2048 sheet" obligation ? Should I maybe try to split everything on 4x1024 maps ?

Thanks :')

Alex_J

Probably almost every piece can use mirrored UVs. You'll never see both sides of the bike at once and they are essentially the same right?

Some pieces may have little detail in the textures. For example they are just raw metal. So then they don't need much texel density. Their shell can be scaled down very small to give more room for others.

If the whole thing is given one 2k texture, dont bother viewing pieces up close that would require much more resolution to look right. Just get it looking good for something like the first shot you showed.

Make whatever compromise necessary to hit the deadline. There is all the time in the world afterwards that you can revisit this and turn it into a real masterpiece. And don't get too caught up in "optimizing" your UV layout. The primary goal is to make good looking art. Do that first, then comb through the technical things to see what you can improve. It's digital work, so everything is highly flexible. Don't have to do it all right in one go.

cmdrDsig

Alex Javor said:

Probably almost every piece can use mirrored UVs. You'll never see both sides of the bike at once and they are essentially the same right?

Can't believe I hadn't thought of that sooner... Thanks

Yeah. I'm not too optimistic on how this will look on a 2k set, but as you said, I'll probably make it without any restrictions for a real showcase later !

Thanks alot.

gnoop

I would  Just make some texel size priority for small important detail too.    Never understood why it's considered a crime  now .   Nobody would really notice  until it's like 5 times difference .

Also, straighten  curved things and circles, those  tiny circles could be ok without hard edge splitting probably ,    then  try packmaster2 pro, It would pack it better

HAWK12HT

I will offset repeating tiny small parts on U or V 1 in UV space, enlarge them a bit to give them enough texture resolution without compromising too much texel density of rest of the bike. Will avoid UV symmetry on big body parts as its fairly a simple form and lets say you want to add dirt and grime all over even with Tri projection mirroring issues will be visible. 
I will straighten out all those 1px shells you have which looks like part of motor chain and wires, even if you go 4K with those type of curves you will get artifacts so its best to trade off those with a bit of stretching on UV shell with perfect straight bakes (no wavy), you will have more space to upscale your shells with enough padding and with all the textures applied the stretching wont be noticeable at all.