Planning for a Modular Building
I'm after some model planning advice. I'm new to 3DS Max and game asset / environment creation but have spent a fair bit of time reading through these forums and learning techniques. To put some things into practice I am trying to recreate a building near my home to use in the Unity Engine as part of a small reconstruction of my local area. This presents some good challenges and chances to try out in practice some of the theory I have been reading.
I want to try and make this building using modular (as much as possible) geometry and to keep a reasonably low overall polycount. I plan to use tiling brick textures with possibly thirding or vertex shading to add variation. I plan to make one window model with 3 or 4 variants of texture and a few decals as where required.
As I'm still learning Max but have more experience with Sketchup I thought I'd use that to photomatch the building and to measure the elements.
Here is my matched model with some construction lines to divide the building up. These were more for measurements but I'm trying to decide if this is a valid way to make modular pieces. Could I simply cut out the windows which are all the same size and make one modal for the frame and sill which I can use modularly or should I aim to make a section with the window and a piece of wall and tile that geometry?
Really I'm interested in how other people would cut this model up for a modular workflow so I can learn the common approaches.
I want to try and make this building using modular (as much as possible) geometry and to keep a reasonably low overall polycount. I plan to use tiling brick textures with possibly thirding or vertex shading to add variation. I plan to make one window model with 3 or 4 variants of texture and a few decals as where required.
As I'm still learning Max but have more experience with Sketchup I thought I'd use that to photomatch the building and to measure the elements.
Here is my matched model with some construction lines to divide the building up. These were more for measurements but I'm trying to decide if this is a valid way to make modular pieces. Could I simply cut out the windows which are all the same size and make one modal for the frame and sill which I can use modularly or should I aim to make a section with the window and a piece of wall and tile that geometry?
Really I'm interested in how other people would cut this model up for a modular workflow so I can learn the common approaches.
Replies
I put lots of good examples and approaches here, should really help you figure out how to break things down...
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentModularity
I will try to post a shot without the model overlay later.
I have read some of the wiki stuff and found it very useful. I'm not 100% sure how to put it all n practice which I why I'm starting with this. I was just curious about how others would carve it up.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned much in modular tuts is how, after copying the pieces all around, you generally will want to collapse all the little pieces into a single entity. Like, each major side of a building would be made with multiple copies of a window frame mesh, each one referencing the same UV island within the texture atlas, but in the end you generally want that major building side to be a single mesh, instead of a ton of separate meshes.
Same with the front of the building, the roof, etc. And THOSE can fit modularly with one another, so you can create multiple building variations. You start with modular sub-pieces, then end up with larger pieces that work together.
At least, that's one possible approach. All depends on your tech and the game style, whatever works best performance-wise and game design-wise. Often the whole building will be collapsed into a single entity, for better perf.
I had wondered in this case if I should just have essentially a large box for the main structure with a tiling brick texture and then float the windows and detail on top. It would seem to use less verts for the same job.