How to go about texturing this type of building?

mrgesy · Feb 2015

This is my first stylized building and I've been thinking how to go about texturing this. I had two ideas:

1. To unwrap everything uniquely to 1 or 2 UV maps and paint all the details. Then use Crazybump to create normal/spec maps and also bake AO to give the model more depth. This would take longer and I don't know if this is efficient.

2. To create tiling roof and wood textures and create a sheet to which I can unwrap and overlap UVs. The problem with this method is that:

a)The elements in the concept are kind of unique and I can't just slap on
a tiling texture and call it a day. I still have to paint in unique dirt
bird poop and such.
b) I can't bake AO because there will be a lot of overlapping UVs.
c) The wooden beams will look boring because I won't be able to paint highlights on their edges and such unique
details.
Also the wooden beams differ in shapes and sizes.

Also I'm making this model to be uploaded to Sketchfab, so I can't utilize tricks that can be done in engines like UDK.

Here is the concept and blockout.

jenioss · Feb 2015

I am not an expert, but if it was me, I'll put the roofs parts and the white walls to an UV project, the wood parts in an other one and finaly all the details and the transparant ones in a last uv.

That may sound simple, but I found that way more adaptable and it offer more space in the uvs project to get more pixels for each part.

ps. again, I'm a newbie with 3d ^^ but for a 3d project, if I know I'm going to make 20 beams, I make 4 of them to get some variations, then I duplicate over my construction. So my uvs projects are easier to manage

I don't know if that's how you work, but it may help ^^

AlecMoody · Feb 2015

You can't really unique map this kind of stuff unless you are only going to see it from a distance and you aren't going to have many variations on this building type.

For localized variations you would use a vertex paint shader and decals. The cost of all the textures and materials get amortized over a scene.

Odow · Feb 2015

I don't know on what style your planing to texture it but if it's handpaint, tillable for the roof, the white concrete wall and the wood. Modular for the beam ( you turn them around to show different side of the beam.

Texelion · Feb 2015

Well, doing assets for video games is a balance between time, performance and detail. If you have the time and don't care about performances ( like, if your asset doesn't need to be ultra optimized ), go for max detail, but always keep in mind that most stuff can be done in a way to save some time and effort ( if you're going for specific beams because you want to put dirt at the base, maybe you only need one beam like this and then duplicate it ).

If you need it optimized, screw the details and put everything on generic textures. You can add decals for the details or geometry and bake the AO in vertex color ( and a lot of game environments are like this ).

You can also sacrifice a bit of design to make it more "game ready", so you need to rework the concept and take into account which elements could be re-used instead of being full specific.

I don't know how Sketchfab evolved since I last used it, but limiting yourself just to show your model outside of a real game engine is not good. If it's a portfolio piece, companies won't care about what you can do in Sketchfab, they want you to show what you can do in a real engine.

How to go about texturing this type of building?

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