Texture Mapping in Sketchup

[East Coast Simulations]

Hello,

My name is Kyle Kato and I am a co-owner of East Coast Simulations, a new scenery developer for FSX/P3D. Our team is currently focused on creating models and textures for our airports, and we have come across an issue we are looking for advice on.

One of our developers is currently modeling a hangar/building at the airport we are designing. The modeling is going quite well, and the hangar has been geo-located within Sketchup (google map/satellite, the .skp file is attached in a dropbox link). The issue we are having is with texturing. We have several seamless textures and others for the buildings, but the problem is with mapping the textures. What is the best way to fit these textures into smaller bmp's instead of having a separate bmp for each and every small texture? We've seen that many other sceneries have several different textures combined in one image. It is understood that you can fit them all (we've tried that). But, within sketchup, when applying the material to several different areas, the scale/size changes for each and every place it is applied although we are trying to change it for only one selection. Is it possible to stop this? And if not, what's the best way to scale the textures into one image to make them properly fit/scale?

Here is a dropbox link with the sketchup project file.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c7a0s77fc75lyxw/Business Aircraft Center.skp?dl=0

Thank you all for the help!

Kyle Kato - EC Simulations

 

[=rk=]

the scale/size changes for each and every place it is applied although we are trying to change it for only one selection. Is it possible to stop this?

Yes, do not touch the yellow pin! Actually the concept is really simple and if you just think it through, I'm sure it will make sense. You already understand the idea of texture mapping, as it's the title of your thread. Now imagine for our example we are going to work with a portion of a building texture that is a 3 foot by 5 foot window. As long as we lay that texture on geometry that corresponds to 3'x5' it will be the same texture. We could also "map" it to 5'x3' by simply flipping it on it's side. Now if we scale it to 5'x5', SketchUp will perform the operation, but there is no "scaling factor" in the UVW mapping scheme, so to insure the same 5x5 texture is displayed for every model in every format SU supports, SU creates a new texture to correspond to that piece of geometry.
As to your concern about compact texture files, there are several options. You can create the sheets with various faces, say sides of buildings all compactly arranged and then map a small portion of the file onto each model. Yes SU will create a unique texture for each export, but you can use the same name, so ultimately many models call from a single texture file. Another way is to use tiles for individual faces and try to keep them small, under 128 pixels square. Then when you get to MCX you can use the minimize draw call function to get many combined into a single texture file. Generally it does not seem as efficient as the first technique, but I have been surprised at the result and it seems to be very effective when you have a combination of colors and small textures.

 

[East Coast Simulations]

Rick,

Thank you very much for the help. That really does make sense and it all seems to be going well!
One more question : How would it be possible for me to add text here : http://prntscr.com/9ya15m
In that rectangle, I want to add text on the seamless metal plate texture in the background, how would I be able to do that?

 

[=rk=]

I can't see why just eyedroppering the adjacent section, just outside the blank area and then applying texture within the blank area would not transfer the exact mapping of the area already textured, unless I am missing something. If the pieces don't line up, you can "slide" the texture until they do without creating a new one.
Now I want to caution you about using seamless tiles for large areas. You are going to want to apply an effect to your texture that corresponds to geometry, whether it is the pool of a light or the cast of a shadow. This is where programs like Autodesk 3ds Max are very powerful, because they calculate elements of geometry to create a shadow effect. I think it looks like "greasy hands," if you could imagine it around hand rails or the edges of geometry, but applied properly it can be very immersive of reality. SketchUp users can do this too but it is a more drawn out process. You want to capture or "paint" a texture that is the face of a building or side of an aircraft and then project that uniformly onto the side of the model. Then you run one of the render extensions, adjust the settings for glare and shadows. take a screen shot and then use that as the texture for your building, voila, baked on shadows. You can't do that with tiled textures.