Modeling furniture / UVW mapping / Unwraping / Proper workflow

[lukass1]

Hello, I'm trying to do some basic project. Now the time have come for texturing. I've never had much experience in proper texturing / UVW mapping, somehow I've always found some way around. I've got some pack of high resolution PBR textures(tillable). And when started texturing process...well all I must say is that from 4 days I haven't move much forward with my little project. In these days I've learned why even topology is so important, but still I am unable to move forward. I know that almost every of my object in scene needs to be rebuilt. I just want to ask a question to someone advanced to know did I manage to think things right.

- am I correct that when I redo my objects to even topology then my tillable textures will work properly ? (with normal UVW map probably)

-unwrap UVW is a correct way to work with tillable textures ? since I was trying to unwrap in couple of ways...but every way was wrong for proper tileable texture look (wood for example)

-maybe I should connect seams manually, and try to move unwraped isles to achieve seamless look ?

-I know I could export UVW unwrap map of my model, and do some magic in photoshop, but still I doubt it is a proper workflow.

If someone would be so good to explain this little problem to me I would be very grateful, later I can post some images of my models and problems, but I am sure that explanation on standard box model would be enough, since my problem is with seamless textures and natural look.

[10DSpace]

@lukass1 

In the absence of seeing specific models and UV mapping/Unwrapping I can only give general answers to your questions, (but maybe that is what you are after initially):

“- am I correct that when I redo my objects to even topology then my tillable textures will work properly ?”

Not necessarily depending on how your UV mapping was done.  If  you change the topology of your mesh you have changed the vertex/edge/polygon arrangement.  So any preexisting UV mapping may need to be updated to get the result you want with tillable textures.  For simple Box mapping with the UVW Map modifier, the tileable texture will be updated to a similar result.   But for a UV unwrapped mesh via Unwrap UVW, you will need to update the UVW map so that newly added geometry is properly flattened and relaxed without distortion onto the UV tile.

“-unwrap UVW is a correct way to work with tillable textures ? since I was trying to unwrap in couple of ways...but every way was wrong for proper tileable texture look (wood for example)”

Tileable textures are not really necessary (or even desirable) for a UVW Unwrapped mesh.  In contrast to simple box mapping in the UVW Map modifier (which creates a 3D box around the mesh to which the tileable texture is applied through the entire volume), Unwrap UVW modifier creates a flattened 2D map to which you must apply a 2d texture.  You have complete control over exactly which 2d texture information is used in different parts of the mesh.  Generally, after unwrapping with Unwrap UVW you create a UVW template (via Tools> Render UVW Template) and take that into Photoshop or GIMP  and use that as a guide to place 2d texture info or paint your mesh.  (A lot of users also use Substance Painter  or similar external program for this step).   Sure, you can use a tileable texture across the whole space but you will not get a good result unless you align all of your UV islands to take advantage of the tileable texture.  But that really defeats the purpose of Unwrap UVW which is to give precise control over texturing different parts of the mesh.

At the risk of oversimplifying here, Simple Box Mapping with a tileable texture can be fine for quick and dirty texturing of assets in the background where the entire mesh only needs 1 texture.  But if you want greater control and the ability to place different textures in different parts of the same mesh, then Unwrap UVW is the way to go.   Hope this helps.

[lukass1]

thank you for very precise answer. I think I'm getting into something 🙂 that bellow is more less what I was trying to achieve, and one wall needed to be rotated 180 to match my wooden planks . My first problem was that I was trying to do it on checker without numbers...it can be confusing. 

I know I am probably shooting with cannon to a sparrow...but I cannot imagine any other way how to do it. 

[10DSpace]

@lukass1 

What does your modifier stack look like? It looks like maybe you just placed an Unwrap UVW modifier on top of a UVW Map modifier without actually doing any unwrapping.  The UVs you show are all bunched up in one place and have not been flattened out.  This (i.e., flattening out the UVs) is what you need to learn how to do with the tools in the Unwrap UVW editor.  I do think it is very worthwhile to learn Unwrapping and that it is not “shooting with cannon to a sparrow” in the long run for reasons stated in my original post (i.e., complete control of placing texture info on the model).  

These following 2 videos are a good start for explaining and demonstrating the basics of the Unwrap UVW modifier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-e43rUcF8I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEtPGUovpK0

If you want more, do a google search on “3ds Max Unwrap UVW modifier” and you will find many tutorials and links to the Max documentation as well.   It does take a little time and effort to learn, but once you get the concepts down you will be able to get good results.

One other thing I will mention is that the arm of the chair you show has many more polygons than you actually need to define the shape. (Long straight flat surfaces do not need many edges to define them).  Generally, this makes it more difficult to do UV unwrapping because you have more polygons to select and flatten.  The best workflow is to Unwrap a lower to mid poly model and if you want to place a turbosmooth on top to get more subdivisions then you can do this after you have unwrapped.  This is another reason you need to watch the introductory videos as they will help to make this clear to you.  

[lukass1]

modifier stack looks good I have this things in control. Just edit poly and unwrap UVW, since I have been all the time adding reset UVW and collapsing and starting again another try.

Hmmm I think my screen can be confusing, because I think I flatted UVW but they look like that because I've separated one seam and made him overlap with with other part just to have texture continuity between sides. Or maybe I am still lost...(I know that overlapping is usually not good but for this little thing I think it won't matter)

Yeah this one with so many polys is just one of about 15 different retopology tries I've been trying whole week to approach this problem to learn and understand UVW mapping 🙂

thanks for videos, that first one I have not seen, will watch that later. But this second one I've watched all three parts 😛