Uv questions
polycounter lvl 16
'''''Hello its a few things i am unsure of when it comes to the texture part of large objects.
Im going to model for Unreal engine 3.
I have built a house (highrise) and reuse the first floor over and over,i then cut the mesh in smaller parts.
When i open Unreal Editor i see alot of staticwalls.I assume they have one uvmap per wall which has around 5 or six diffrent walls in that package.
1.Shuld i select all walls and set them to matid:1 and put a uvunwrap on or just one wall per uv map?
Here is the building.And the parts.I use thesame parts on each floor and i can see the pattern
Here is a screen from Ued which has 3 uvchannels,What are they used for?Lightmap?and...?
Also this is one part of something bigger i assume and this little mesh has its own Uvmap or is it share uvmap with another model in this package?
Im confused.I need to know how to make my building in the best way,I cant have overlapped uvs right?Then the lightmap wont be generated,Do i need a lightmap on my building or parts?
If i use tile textures on the walls,one brick texture i can see the pattern and it looks like if i made something for Ut99
I cant understand how Stefan morell made his Buildings for crysis engine,Shuldnt be that diffrent
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=39&t=444791
I simply dont know how the epic people make a building like this for UT3
Im going to model for Unreal engine 3.
I have built a house (highrise) and reuse the first floor over and over,i then cut the mesh in smaller parts.
When i open Unreal Editor i see alot of staticwalls.I assume they have one uvmap per wall which has around 5 or six diffrent walls in that package.
1.Shuld i select all walls and set them to matid:1 and put a uvunwrap on or just one wall per uv map?
Here is the building.And the parts.I use thesame parts on each floor and i can see the pattern
Here is a screen from Ued which has 3 uvchannels,What are they used for?Lightmap?and...?
Also this is one part of something bigger i assume and this little mesh has its own Uvmap or is it share uvmap with another model in this package?
Im confused.I need to know how to make my building in the best way,I cant have overlapped uvs right?Then the lightmap wont be generated,Do i need a lightmap on my building or parts?
If i use tile textures on the walls,one brick texture i can see the pattern and it looks like if i made something for Ut99
I cant understand how Stefan morell made his Buildings for crysis engine,Shuldnt be that diffrent
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=39&t=444791
I simply dont know how the epic people make a building like this for UT3
Replies
I have looked in the faq which just explains the basic tile technique without any unwrap editor.
Does`nt explain modular design ,Like large objects(houses).Ive seen diffrent walls in Unreal ed which seems to have only one unwrap per wall
And if my model contains 10 diffrent objects,shuld they share thesame painted uv map or can i make one unwrap for each object which give me ALOT more details
There are alot of gliches between the information i think.
Might be wrong and missed something out there?
the way I do such things is merging all objects to 1 unique Object together and unwrap that one (or if you have max2008/2009 you can edit multiple objects at once- but usually i use external tools such as UvLayout that eat only 1 *.OBJ file). Once you unwrapped and layouted split it apart again into the individual objects.
I wrote myself once some maxscripts to improve that workflow- to transfer the faces from the merged 1 obj to the instances of the former ones - so that in the end I would not have to edit object by object into 1 UV but right away 1 bunch of them.
try out yourself what works best for you- and share it here if you care
The detail sux in the textures,I try to use unsharp mask but it still sux,If i could i would use a 4096px map for one window,Then im getting closer to the result some guys in here has on their models
It could have its own UV map if it might ever be separated from the rest of the pack.
Overlapping UVs are ok, for the UV channel the diffuse uses. The Light/shadow map should have seperate UV's, UV channel 2 is mostly used for light/shadow maps.
Not much anyone can help you with there, you'll need to work on your material creation skills...
You have the editor... take a look at the pieces/packages... There are a bunch of different ways to make buildings and in the span of a game they might make buildings several different ways. Some might be fractured like what you have done, but some might be entire whole chunks, or broken by floors. It really depends on the game, whats happening, how often the pieces will be used and how close the players are going to get...
Look for your building specs and texture sizes and then create it the way YOU think it should be made. You might even get better/more advice, but more importantly if what you create looks good then your process is good enough (if you end up anywhere at a job or mod then those people should tell you how they want things done).
Also you'll never need a 4096 for a window of this detail. If you're just looking at your viewport then there could be some texture blurring happening among other things. You'll want to get viewport shaders and such so you can display your models like the ones you see around here. Or just hit f9 and see what a scanline looks like (make sure to change to catmull-rom render). Or just try getting something into unreal to see what it looks like. It's doesn't take too long to get a model into the editor.
The building your working on to me says tileable texture. Make the bricks, heck even make multiple brick patterns with the same theme (gray brick and then dirty gray brick). This will still require you to unwrap your building sections, but don't worry about overlap on the diffuse. Just make sure things line up and tile properly. Then you can blend the two brick textures via vertex colours. Then things like 2-3 windows, 2-3 balcony's and trims can be made in a unique unwrap and instanced around the building.
Personally I'm with you, as in I find if I look at the way most UT3 levels/buildings are created my head explodes. Everything is a unique model, with unique details, high poly baked down and then somehow assembled into something that looks spectacular. And it boggles my mind as to how they get it from a concept/idea to everything on the grid to fit like lego bricks. But that's also why it looks so amazing, takes forever and why those guys are working on those AAA games and I'm not!
Anyways, I'm probably not the best person to give out advice/help but maybe there's some nuggets of truth and realism in here you might take away.
Thanks guys!