Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
in Unity the shaders could be constructed to provide that interesting balance of
high specularity and matte surfaces. Of course this comes with a cost, a single
object with multiple materials means more draw calls to draw that single object,
so generally this nice effect has to be weighed against the performance cost.
In this case we will create a texture atlas for all three weapons, but the entire
character mesh (AC_AegisChung) along with his eyes (AC_LeftEye and
AC_RightEye) will use one texture. This means that all the UVs for the
character must reside in the 1,1 quadrant of the UV Texture Editor. But,
because there are obvious changes in what his “real” materials are (he wears
a shirt tucked into a belt attached to his pants, for instance), there are some
obvious places where seams can be allowed.
This should actually come as a great relief. Trying to get a form as complex as
the human one into one seamless (or nearly seamless) UV shell without a lot
of distortion is a very difficult task. With the ability to break the character up
into various shells dictated by the change in fabric on his body brings with it
tons of flexibility. When you build a game with a nude protagonist though,
well, then you've got issues.
Figure 9.3
shows a quick schematic of places where obvious seams would
occur. Although in your own work these zones can usually be identified by a
quick visual glance at the form (no need to create this kind of schematic), this i
mage should show the idea of breaking shells up by the breaks in fabric.
One other note about seams that we will address again later in the tutorial:
an obvious place to plan seams are where there are clothing seams. Clothing
