overlap when ever you can, unless feel it will look to repetitive, say you overlap all your wheel UV's than you got that much more UV space to make everything else larger and increase your texel density
Yes, this. Also, airplanes are bilaterally symmetrical, so you can mirror the UVs to save a ton of space. If you have lettering or decals, either split those polys into a separate unmirrored UV, or float an alpha-blended poly on top (alpha is generally slower to render, depends on the engine).
Yes, this. Also, airplanes are bilaterally symmetrical, so you can mirror the UVs to save a ton of space. If you have lettering or decals, either split those polys into a separate unmirrored UV, or float an alpha-blended poly on top (alpha is generally slower to render, depends on the engine).
You can do similar things though shaders also, max has a "composite map" that you can use to lay text over the top of the material without having to use extra geometry. Game engines have similar ways of working but it all depends on the engine and the overall tech cost.
Bottom of the plane could also be mirrored. Also it looks as if a lot of pieces there could be overlapped... what are all those eight-quad circles towards the bottom?
Another consideration: if you have metal-panel seams along the fuselage, the it's usually better to straighten out the UVs so those lines will be pixel-straight in the map.
There isn't much padding between the pieces, you should apply a per pixel map and see just how many pixels you have to work with. Some of the small tiny pieces will be lucky to get 1-2 pixels and they are going to bleed into each other. You might as well put a tiny square in the UV layout and stack all the pieces in it, the end effect will be the same but it will save some space.
Like Eric mentioned there is a lot that can be straightened.
It takes less pixels to draw a crisp straight line horizontal or vertical (single strip of pixels) but it takes more pixels to draw a diagonal line, it takes a lot more pixels and they need to be anti-aliased properly.
You could use the "Straighten Selection" tool on things that are quad patches, like the curvy strip at the top.
You can also select loops and flatten them individually using the tools in "Quick Transform".
Quick recap:
- There seems to be a lot more that can be mirrored.
- I'm almost positive you need more edge padding.
- Check the layout with a per pixel map, if you can't get details on the tiny pieces they need to be scaled so you can or if they don't matter stuff them in a tiny square.
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You can do similar things though shaders also, max has a "composite map" that you can use to lay text over the top of the material without having to use extra geometry. Game engines have similar ways of working but it all depends on the engine and the overall tech cost.
Another consideration: if you have metal-panel seams along the fuselage, the it's usually better to straighten out the UVs so those lines will be pixel-straight in the map.
There isn't much padding between the pieces, you should apply a per pixel map and see just how many pixels you have to work with. Some of the small tiny pieces will be lucky to get 1-2 pixels and they are going to bleed into each other. You might as well put a tiny square in the UV layout and stack all the pieces in it, the end effect will be the same but it will save some space.
Like Eric mentioned there is a lot that can be straightened.
It takes less pixels to draw a crisp straight line horizontal or vertical (single strip of pixels) but it takes more pixels to draw a diagonal line, it takes a lot more pixels and they need to be anti-aliased properly.
You could use the "Straighten Selection" tool on things that are quad patches, like the curvy strip at the top.
You can also select loops and flatten them individually using the tools in "Quick Transform".
Quick recap:
- There seems to be a lot more that can be mirrored.
- I'm almost positive you need more edge padding.
- Check the layout with a per pixel map, if you can't get details on the tiny pieces they need to be scaled so you can or if they don't matter stuff them in a tiny square.
http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap#UV_Coordinates
Some more cool stuff
http://wiki.polycount.com/TextureCoordinates