Aligning Texture on Modular Building Pieces

[Anonymous]

Hi, currently I'm trying to make modular buildings but I'm unsure as to how I'll get the textures on each piece to align. For example, a brick wall, or a wooden plank wall. How would I unwrap the uvw of each piece so as to have them align exactly without seams?

Also would this method be better for multi-materialed meshes or should I export a colour map of the mesh and edit it the different textures on so as to physically lock the different materials and ensure the alignment of textures? 

(Cause the latter is what I've been doing but it's really time consuming and I have to manually do it for every single modular piece I have, even if the pieces are using the same textures)

Thanks for your help in advance! 

[CAMedeck]

On the surface, what you're asking seems like it would be fairly simple.  But once you start thinking about all the ways the modules could be put together, having the textures be seamless between them all is quite a bit more difficult than it first appears.  

We use Unreal Engine for our visualizations, and rather than rely on native UVW Mapping on each imported object we've found a way to use what is called Planar Mapping on many of our materials.  The textures must be seamless, but the mapping is projected from World coordinates so no matter the objects, that texture is mapped the same for all.  

Something like that could work for you too. 

[Anonymous]

Hi! Did you mean to use something like Tri-planar texture mapping when you suggested to use projection mapping using world location? Thanks! 🙂

[CAMedeck]

Yes, Tri-Planar mapping is what I was referring to.  We've just gotten into the habit of simplifying it to 'Planar' mapping here in the office.

[Anonymous]

However, I read that this method is very costly. Is there a more efficient method? I'll definitely try triplanar texturing as its so convenient!