UV Mapping & Texturing The Environment

When it came to UV mapping and texturing the environment, since this was not my strongest skill either I looked at tutorials online for tips. I looked at these videos even though we were not sure if the environment textures would be hand painted or not, so at first below are the videos that helped me in the beginning on different techniques that could be used.

Primary image source

I did look around for different tree textures to use but ended up mixing and matching them with other textures I found on the internet.
I experimented with filters because I was trying to give the textures for the trees and other objects in the environment more depth, so I started using the noise filter which all it does it generate noise in an image and this actually helped add that rough look to the texture.

When I applied the texture to the rock, around certain areas of the model the texture kept stretching and was not looking good, I learnt that it even though stretching the UVs in the UV texture editor would improve the situation, it was the approach I had to modelling the rocks. So in the future, I have to be consistent with the method I have to creating certain objects but this also means getting practice by modelling different objects to understand their geometry better and see similar characteristics in objects.

Rocks Textured

Texture for the tree

Texture for the tree

I learnt from a 3rd year student about another use for the paint tool in Maya which also allows you to soft select many faces at a time over a large area, which saves time.

I did find it hard UV mapping the cave because since I used the extrude tool to create the inside I had to find a way to unwrap it and separate them both. I thought I would go about it the same way if I was unwrapping a barrel or crate but the shape of the cave was neither square or cylindrical. 

With the assistance of my teammate, Keiron Allen, he helped me unwrap the cave which means that my skills in this department of 3D modelling I think has improved.

I approached unwrapping other objects such as the rocks and trees much easier so I had no problem there.

I went about it by cutting the UV edges down the middle of the cave, which separated the cave in half, which later I merged together.

Keiron advised that bringing the edges of the two sides of the cave wall together would lessen the visibility of the seam on the model as you can see in the image below.

The stone texture for the cave

The colour palette for the cave was a mixture of blacks, blues, greens and purples. We were going for more darker colours so as you can see above in the image is where I am playing with the Hue/Saturation tool to change the colour of the overall texture.

Update on Texture

Since the tree that was going to be placed inside the cave was hand-painted, it was then decided that it would be better to go with the concept art from the pre-production and hand-paint the environment instead of using realistic textures. It was decided early on how we wanted the environment to look but since it was during the holidays when most of the group were modelling I was not with Sophie, who did the colouring for the concept art of the inside of the cave. So she has given me a short tutorial on her approach to hand-painting the textures which I am now updating on the models.

UV map snapshot of the cave model

So the textures you see on the models above are going to changed and below is a rough idea of how it looks in the cave.

What it currently looks like now

Now that it was decided to go with painted textures, I have used the reference images below to help with the type of look I wanted for the rocks and stones.
I chose this image because of the different shades and tones which would work well with the other painting styles in the environment.
However, my painting skills are not very good but I am happy with the turn out of the rocks as you can see below in a rendered image. I shall be working with the lighting in unity to help enhance the colours and appearance.

The rendered image of the outside of the cave, the environment is now ready to go into Unity.
Overall, though we were against time, I think the decision to make the environment hand-painted worked much better than the previous textures.