Hi
Im not 100% sure this should go here or the texturing thread but here goes…
I am building a military training village in blender to export and config for a game.
As it is a training village the buildings are only made from breeze block so they all look pretty similar except for house shape and design and obvious wear and tear.
What I need is for every building model to have the breeze block textures in applied exactly the same scale. The way I decided to go (rightly or wrongly) was to actually make the building texture first. That way I can ensure that the breeze block will always be the same on every model. I then use the image as a background reference shot in blender to build my model around. All went well and got a good representation of my first building.
It wasn’t until I was unwrapping my model that I realised I was going to have problems. When I unwrap I have to fix and scale the parts. Maybe this wont be such a great problem on one building but If I have to alter scale etc for 20-30 houses the quality of the textures will vary. Even though the physical size of the breeze blocks will be the same, because I have to resize my original reference image to fit an unwrapped building I fear the quality of the texture will vary on the different buildings making it look poor.
( ^ I hope that all made sense ^ )
My question:
does anyone have any ideas how I can unwrap my model so that the parts comes out the right size for my texture without having to alter them?
It would be great if I could load a background image in the unwrap screen so I could resize and scale my parts again to fit the reference image but I don’t know if this can be done.
I have only a few weeks experience of blender but I have manged to make, unwrap and texture single objects like signs for the training village.
My only thought at this time (with the limited knowledge I have) is that I should choose maybe only a wall at a time and use the unwrap project from view option and make up my map like that. Export my 2048 map and move the relevant parts of my reference texture to fit the exported map without having to scale it too much.
I thought the way of building my actual texture first was a great idea so I can ensure size and quality uniformity ingame. Building the texture first also aided me in obtaining an accurate model scale as I have remained very true the the brick layout and my models will quite accurately represent even the correct amount of bricks in the walls.
The only other option I had would be to build the model first which would involve alot of gestimation as I have no accurate building plans to work from. Then I would unwrap and make my textures to fit. This way I would have to scale my textures to fit the model which would leave me in a similar position.
Sorry if the answer to this is only a simple one but I have not honestly got any idea how to do it.
Any ideas, tips etc would be more than welcome
regards
John
EDIT
I think I answered my own problem or at least an idea I think is feasible.
What if I load my reference image in the UV/Image Editor window and scale my part around it. It should come out OK shouldn’t it?
Off to test it now…
I Would still be interested to know how the more experienced members would tackle this project though.