UV's optimization

As you know, Avi and me are in charge for texturing the level. Here is the approach for UV optimization:

As we can see, we've got one of our sections fitted in the UV area in a way there is no overlapping, which is good. Yet still is kind of messy, and can delay the texturing process if we are using Photoshop - doesn't apply if we use mudbox or zBrush, since we are painting over the model on those packages... downside is our textures lose quality compared to working with Photoshop straight. So, let's take a look at how our UVs are currently arranged:

In here we can see each platform has their UVs placed separately from each other. Makes sense, since they are moving platforms and are an entity on themselves. Yet still, when they are put together, would be nice to have a sense of continuity on the texture, so we arrange our UVs in a way they resemble a single tile, just as they appear at the level:

Organizing the UVs this way helps speeding up the texturing process, since, let's say, if I paint a yellow arrow in the texture file, it will come across just right:

To get it right with the previous arrangement, I'd have to hunt for the right UV on each section and try to puzzle-paint the arrow hoping for the best, which is timeconsuming and not the best approach.

Arranging, of course, doesn't come for free. We need to pay special attention to which faces are getting aligned and make sure what we see selected in our UV Texture Editor is what we want to match in the actual model:

Another issue we are facing here: the main platform's UVs are way too small, this won't give enough room to place a texture with good resolution:

There is also an issue: both UV patches are referring to the same platform, yet still their size is radically different, which will cause less texture quality in one side compared to the other side: 

This particular case is doubly unfortunate since the smaller area happens to be the visible area, and also the most important. 

The more area we can use, the best resolution we get, so we will try to make this area as big as we can, and try to get both areas the same size. Then we face a dilemma here: get either two same-sized decagons in our UV map, or place both of them in the same area, so they share the same texture on each side. I decide to go for the latter, odds are we won't get to see the part below the platform that often, and will save time on the texturing process. So, at the end, our UVs fit both sides of the platform:

Then we got this mini piece of platform that connects everything:

. We can choose either connect it to the other platforms, or to the Crystal platform (or connect absolutely everything, problem with that is massive waste of space due proportion issues). We also need to be very careful as of what faces are we connecting with what. We can make use of the edge selector, so we know which pieces go together:

Sometimes we might even have to break the UVs in pieces in order to puzzle them together.

And well... at the end we end up with UVs looking like this:

They are not perfect, we got a floating space up there that belongs below a tile so doesn't really matter. We are in the final countdown so we can´t afford to be perfect, we got to prioritize: main areas get the bigger UV space and fit UVs, unseen areas won't get such royal treatment :)

Avi will be in charge of the UVs from now on, so show him some love. Merry Monday!