18 Apr 2010 - Why have one when two will do?

Things are finally moving along now after almost a fortnight of agonizing over the in-game terrain. It's still not complete but it's 85% there - no point in doing any more polishing until props and models are in place, so i'm working on that now.

So, a big one today... the water towers in-game, a fundamental part of the game and essential to gameplay. This is something I meant to do almost a month ago and i've finally got around to modelling them today. It didn't take that long to build - with a decent reference image nothing really does.

The water tower is complete! No Texture at time of writing though

Anyway, I thought I should try using multiple UV sets* on this model - partially as a test before texturing the steam car, partially because I need to see how the UDK handles more than one texture on a single model. It worked after a little trial and error, and means that I can use two materials to make a higher resolution texture for the water tower. Doing this with every single model in the game would be a huge memory drain and massively inefficient, but as the towers are almost as much a focal point for the player as the car itself I thought the should take priority.

Applying multiple textures didn't work for me until I re-exported the water tower as two grouped objects - a group for the wooden stand, and one for the tank + pipes. In order to texture the Maxton 88 steamcar using this method, I will have to group parts of the model together that share the same UV set. This will mean nothing to most people reading this but I'm writing it down as a note to myself - I will need to use this again before the project is finished.

The water tower with multiple (basic!) textures in UDK - the Pink and Yellow are two completely seperate texture files

Now i'm going to work on the actual water tower texture, which is uncomplicated Photoshop work. Something light-ish to take me through to the early hours of the morning on another weekend of solid work.

*Note: for anyone reading who hasn't got a clue about what a UV set is - it's a texture map similar to 'nets' that kids sometimes do in Maths lessons in schools. I could blog and explain in detail but time is of the essence and I have a water tower to finish, so it'll have to be done another time!