Tiling Textures, Huge Environements.

Incomitatum

I am pressed for time, and I agree, that may affect the quality. In a perfect world I would not be so... lazy?

What I am asking here is, in large environments that are modeled and not BSP based, is frowned upon to use tiling textures and a quick "UVW Map" modifier, -if- it looks alright? OR, is it generally more encouraged that you unwrap the huge place and place all it's textures on a sheet? I'm not using massive textures; and at the end of the day do textures take up the same amount of space no matter if they are on a sheet or not?

I do plan to unwrap the props individually.


Lastly, I have a circular walkway, that will receive a texture. I can place 1 Planar map on there, but it doesn't look like the texture follows the path (nor did I expect it to); to achieve this effect however, I have no choice -but- to unwrap and play with it; correct?

Thanks for your patience, I know I have been asking a lot of noob questions these past few days.

rube

I would say no it is not frowned upon to use tiling textures, in fact I'd say it's pretty common still.

and yes, you'll need to straighten out the uvs 'by hand' if you want them to follow around the curve

Eric Chadwick

Newer version of max has spline-based UVs, easier to map curves now. You can also simply loft a shape to get curved UVs, but doesn't solve the problem if you have a crenelated or tooth-silhouette wall.

Ryno

You pretty much have to tile extremely large surfaces. A non-tiling UV set can be added for grime, AO, etc. Decals can also be added for variation. Using masks to introduce texture variations is another option.

Mark Dygert

You can also use a blend material, with vertex paint in the blend mask slot. Then use the vertex paint modifier to paint the mask and blend the two materials. Its a really easy way to do paths. It's not very export/game friendly unless your exporter understands the vertex color channel and knows what to do with it.

http://www.cgshelf.com/vertex_paint.php

Peris

nothing wrong with tiling textures if they work well together with your geometry. simply doing unwrap uvw = big nono though! Unless you want your stuff to look like cheap mockups. You can also try working with detail textures and still have everything uniquely unwrapped!