Tips for modeling/unwrapping mass repetitive objects?
First and foremost, Hello! I've been lurking polycount for some time now and finally mustered up the courage to post!
Okay, so I modeled a bridge for a project using Unreal with my class, and I figured it would be extremely easy to model and unwrap. So I created a few splines, made the rope from a spline, and had all of the other geometry follow splines and used the snapshot tool. Easy peasy.
The problem is, I had 150 wooden boards, 25 support posts, and a rope several sections long. I wasn't thinking much about this beforehand, but when I went to unwrap everything, it took me roughly 4 hours, and there are definitely still some issues with some of the texture allocation. I know that there's a better way to do this, I'm just not sure how.
The bridge wasn't a flat bridge, it was a lot like http://www.exchange3d.com/3D%20Model%20of%20Rope%20bridge/prod_4545.html .
Anyways, I'm still unsure of how I should have went about it. I tried highlighting all of the planks at once and unwrapping them all at once, but apparently max doesn't like that.
How would you more experienced 3d artists go about modeling/unwrapping that? I'm confident in my modeling abilities, but my techniques could definitely use some improvement... as for unwrapping, I still have a lot of trouble with that. Every unwrapping tutorial I seem to find works out perfectly for them, but no so much for me.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Okay, so I modeled a bridge for a project using Unreal with my class, and I figured it would be extremely easy to model and unwrap. So I created a few splines, made the rope from a spline, and had all of the other geometry follow splines and used the snapshot tool. Easy peasy.
The problem is, I had 150 wooden boards, 25 support posts, and a rope several sections long. I wasn't thinking much about this beforehand, but when I went to unwrap everything, it took me roughly 4 hours, and there are definitely still some issues with some of the texture allocation. I know that there's a better way to do this, I'm just not sure how.
The bridge wasn't a flat bridge, it was a lot like http://www.exchange3d.com/3D%20Model%20of%20Rope%20bridge/prod_4545.html .
Anyways, I'm still unsure of how I should have went about it. I tried highlighting all of the planks at once and unwrapping them all at once, but apparently max doesn't like that.
How would you more experienced 3d artists go about modeling/unwrapping that? I'm confident in my modeling abilities, but my techniques could definitely use some improvement... as for unwrapping, I still have a lot of trouble with that. Every unwrapping tutorial I seem to find works out perfectly for them, but no so much for me.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated!