One UVmap vs. multiple UVmaps

Support Materials and Textures
1

Hi bros & bras,

I finished my model of an astronaut helmet and I’m about to texture it. In order to have some nice hires details, scratches, worn edges and whatnot I UV-unwrapped the whole thing and ended up with an 8k map to get that high level of detail.

But I am wondering what happend if I split the UV-islands into multiple UV-maps with about 1k size each? Would that crank down my rendertimes? Would that be more memory efficient? Is it better to go with the one 8k map?

Do you guys have any experience with that?

BTW, this is just the helmet of a character which will be animated in my shortfilm.

Thanks in advance,
serum…

o/

2

Going for multiple 1K maps might indeed give a better memory/quality ratio if it means less empty pixels.

The only thing to note is that GPU rendering in Cycles has a limit as to how many textures can be used in a single scene (I believe it’s 128 maps).

3

Gotcha.
So, it’s more a question of pixel effectiveness and what the gpu can handle. In my case that means I go with the one 8k map.

Any other suggestions?

4

interresting read! that had some bits and pieces that help me.
thanks John o/