[QUESTION] UVW Unwrapping Vehicles (And texturing too)

[TomClancy]

Hey all,

I've got a few questions on how to approach unwrapping this truck.

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/9608/f100renderfull.jpg
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/3322/f100renderfull2.jpg

I was wondering if the best method is to attach all objects into one and unwrap as one or unwrap each object as a separate entity with it's own set of smaller textures.

My only concern with attaching all the objects is the doors/hood/tailgate are movable. I wasn't sure if that screwed up animation if it was all the same object.

And if you guys have any critiques for the truck, I'm all ears.

I'll have plenty of questions on texturing it too, but that's for a later time.

Thanks for the help,
Anthony

[neuro]

i don't see the point in attaching them.

1, you can select multiple objects and then apply unwrap uvw which works fine.
2, you can just unwrap one piece, and then the other piece, and then select both, and then you try packing them.

there's no point in packing uv's if you've not flattened every part you're going to need yet.

to be honest, i'm having a hard time figuring out why this would be a hard thing to understand, but whatever.

[TomClancy]

Thanks.

And I had forgotten once you UV an object, you can attach it to another without the loss of its UV's. My only concern was having the objects all attached as one would screw up animating, but I guess it doesn't. That was where the confusion was.

[TomClancy]

I've got another question. I didn't make a high poly version of this truck and I meant to so I could bake it onto the low-poly version. For future reference, should I model both a high and low poly version of the mesh at the same time?

I've never been totally sure on how people do it, at least for hard meshes. I'd like to stay away from mudbox if possible, though most people use that for organic meshes, right?

[neuro]

no ofcourse you don't have to.

in general you only make a highpoly to bake a normalmap (to fake high detail) in your game mesh

edit: you also don't have to unwrap your highpoly.

(you could, even add a BUMPmap to your highpoly, whch will bake right int your normalmap if you did, if you wanted though.)

[TomClancy]

Okay cool, thanks.

How would you recommend modeling the high-poly? Or at what stage? I have the low-poly finished, but would it have been wiser to have modeled the high-poly first? Or along side the low-poly?

[BobtheGreatII]

Generally the workflow would be to create a high poly and then make a low poly.

[neuro]

generally, make highpoly, make lowpoly, UV lowpoly, make a bake, see that it sucks, revise lowpoly, redo uvs, bake again, fuck with your cage, bake again.

but that's just for single things.

MOST of the time, (for environment art at least) you'll be mapping existing textures to new meshes which they were not made for, and you're just going to have to make it work anyway.