Baked-Bevel-Trim Workflow__How to unwrapp complex models?
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Hi everybody. I am working on an environment and I wanted to try to learn this method I saw on a post by Matthew Trevelyan.
You can see his post here:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qQGK6y
I understand the basics of a trim sheet. I have used it for basic walls or decals or simple shapes like cylindrical pillars and such. However, I have never tried to approach it as a way of texturing props.
I have studied Trevelyan's post and I have understood the following (Please correct me if I am wrong):
1. The trim bevels need to be done at an angle of 45 degrees as he demonstrates
2. The model itself is made of hard edges (I mean shading) at 90 degree angles. Other angles break the effect (You can find this info in the image captions of his publication)
Based on this I decided to create a trim sheet and test. With very simple models there is no problem but I feel things get difficult with anything more complex than a box. Here is the basic setup of my test:
I tried to apply the trim on these two simple boxes you can see in the screenshot. No problems there but I had to add more edge loops in order have small enough faces on so they would fit in the trim sheet. I cannot scale the UV islands so I don't affect my texel density. This is how the box looks in UV space:
As I said, I had to add more loops in order to split UV islands so I can fit them properly in UV space and have bot smooth edge borders but also smooth corners:
When I tried to test the workflow with the large desk things got complicated. I would need to add too many loop cuts to make small enough UV islands to fit them in the trim sheet. I could allocate space in my trim sheet so I would have longer vertical edges to map (taller rectangles in my normal map), but I did not see that on Trevelyan's normal map.
So to map The desk I thought I would inset every side of the desk and map the edges as a poly strip as you can see on the image here:
This makes unwrapping faster and a bit less of a nightmare but I get a clear sharp seam in every corner within a side of the desk, you can see what I mean here:
So after these two tests I ran out of ideas as to how to unwrap the models to take advantage of this worklow. My question is, how should I unwrapp my models? I have checked the examples in the Trevelyan's post and the results are amazing, I cannot spot any of these issues there.
Thank you for your time in advance!
You can see his post here:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qQGK6y
I understand the basics of a trim sheet. I have used it for basic walls or decals or simple shapes like cylindrical pillars and such. However, I have never tried to approach it as a way of texturing props.
I have studied Trevelyan's post and I have understood the following (Please correct me if I am wrong):
1. The trim bevels need to be done at an angle of 45 degrees as he demonstrates
2. The model itself is made of hard edges (I mean shading) at 90 degree angles. Other angles break the effect (You can find this info in the image captions of his publication)
Based on this I decided to create a trim sheet and test. With very simple models there is no problem but I feel things get difficult with anything more complex than a box. Here is the basic setup of my test:
I tried to apply the trim on these two simple boxes you can see in the screenshot. No problems there but I had to add more edge loops in order have small enough faces on so they would fit in the trim sheet. I cannot scale the UV islands so I don't affect my texel density. This is how the box looks in UV space:
As I said, I had to add more loops in order to split UV islands so I can fit them properly in UV space and have bot smooth edge borders but also smooth corners:
When I tried to test the workflow with the large desk things got complicated. I would need to add too many loop cuts to make small enough UV islands to fit them in the trim sheet. I could allocate space in my trim sheet so I would have longer vertical edges to map (taller rectangles in my normal map), but I did not see that on Trevelyan's normal map.
So to map The desk I thought I would inset every side of the desk and map the edges as a poly strip as you can see on the image here:
This makes unwrapping faster and a bit less of a nightmare but I get a clear sharp seam in every corner within a side of the desk, you can see what I mean here:
So after these two tests I ran out of ideas as to how to unwrap the models to take advantage of this worklow. My question is, how should I unwrapp my models? I have checked the examples in the Trevelyan's post and the results are amazing, I cannot spot any of these issues there.
Thank you for your time in advance!
Replies
It's easy to drill down and get hung up on details. But it's important to pull back and try to see the larger picture.
Many of these errors will become much less important once the full material is applied, and the asset is seen in context in a real game experience.