Multiple objects, Multiple UVW's and Textures?

[Cozmo]

Here's what you can do, first you create uv coords for all of your parts, each object gets its own coords.

then you copy your robot, all of its parts and merge them together into a single object, then when you apply the unwrap modifier you'll get all of the previously created uv coords into a single "space".You can use texporter to generate an image based on this new single uv space/coords to use it as a template and paint your textures in it. The problem is that some of your objects' uv coords may intersect and you'll find that after you've merged the objects, and it wont be possible to fix them, you'll have to fix the original coords from the original parts, so you'll have to make the uv coords, of the original parts, not intersect with other coords which won't be there and you won't be able to see then, so you'll have to guess at that. Then you simply put the texture in one mateial and apply it to all of the original parts.
In other words you need the copy of the robot to merge the uv coords of all of your parts into a single uv coord space and texport it

I hope it helps

[Teratron]

Thanks, good Idea,

Do you happen to know whitch would be better memory wise, If the textures were all on a few big maps or a bunch of smaller maps. Seemes like If you applied a texture to an object that was only using say 1/4 of the bitmap it would be less efficent than if it had its own smaller texture that was ussing the whole thing. Unless max just instances the textures from the browser anyway so in that case it would be better to used A few Biger maps

anyway Thanks again

[Cozmo]

Well, if you use a single map it'll load only one instance of it, no matter how many objects use it, if you use multiple maps they'll add up to to big one eventually.
Frankly I have no idea :) However using one map will be easier to manage, but you'll lose the possibility to have multiple materials/shaders for the different parts, you know different attributes like specularity, illumination, and stuff like that you might want to change later for specific objects, not all of them as a whole...

[Teratron]

good point,

though I think if they were different materials you could use the same maps but give the shaders different values, and such.

Very interesting though

I think Ill end up doing a combination of the two. ie. say i want blood smeared acose a few diferent parts I think ill put them on the same map, But for all the littel bits like finger segs and such Ill probly give them all the same unwraps and just paint 1 texture for all of them, I think I can get away with it.

Seemes like there should be an easier way to do this, (I would think more people would have to do this) then again I've been saying that allot lately.



Well thanks again for your help

[Cozmo]

though I think if they were different materials you could use the same maps but give the shaders different values, and such.

Yeah, you're right, I thought you wanted to use only one material if you had one texture, for an unkown reason :), yes if you use it in different shaders max will load one copy of it, again.
I personally think it's better to have multiple textures for in your case, since it's a robot, there wont be parts that flow into each other, haven't seen it so sorry if that's not the case, so using one texture wont help you much.
yea, you'll be able to see all the parts in one uv space, the only think that you'll take advantage of is saving time while painting the textures in a single file, time you've already lost fixing the uvs in the unwrapper.
How many objects are we actually talking about?

[Teratron]

Hehe, I have about 150 objects :eek:, but Im actually almost done unwraping, I figured Id just go with the combination method guess life is about comprimise.

I wasent realy ready to show off the model yet but since youve been so cool (and Im dying to get an opinion :)) here are a few renders the posed one should give you an idea of where all the objects are from. (Stupid robot guts) the abs and spine all bend so they had to be broken up along with all the nurny junk in the chest and stuff I have a fun unwraping project on my hands :banghead:.

[Teratron]

lol forgot the images

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.