Hey there, i come from using the source and unreal engine, where i have the use of BSP geometry and can pretty much create the levels in the editor its self where i can texture them, manipulate them and add to them. However from what i understand with Unity, the levels are mostly created in external tools such as 3ds max, Blender ect. I can use 3ds max and have created a lot of single assets for my levels before, but never created an entire level using 3ds max. Is this how my levels will have to be made for unity? If so, how would you go about texturing them, i can imagine UV mapping the entire level and creating a texture map would be very hard work and tedious, and if i make a mistake and want to go back to update the mesh, id have to change a lot.
Could someone with knowledge of this describe to me the stages of creating a level, not a huge description but something to push me in the right direction and so i can look for the right tutorials.
Generally, for Interiors people 3D model the levels, and use Unity’s terrain for Exterior landscape levels.
It’s really only the tools that differ. The design ultimately depends on what genre of game you’re making.
IMHO, the most important part is a good layout design, incorporating whatever features/vision you want.
Could be a moon base, underground bunker, haunted mansion, prison, street or whatever.
Sketch out a floor plan and ideas for each area/room.
Make a few boxes for the rooms/corridors/stairs, and test it for scale.
Add more detail + create texture/normal maps.
You’ll want to consider other things, like player challenge, level lighting, gfx performance.
Not sure what you mean about mistakes, Unity only takes few seconds to import the model/textures (depending on size). The time required to change the model and having it updated in Unity is minimal.
I’m not sure why that would be the case. Change what you want, resave, done. Though you wouldn’t want to use one mesh for the entire level…that wouldn’t be possible anyway because of the 65K vertex limit per mesh.
So lets say i make a fairly small level with 5 or 6 hollow rooms. Would i have to UV map the model at all, or can i apply textures to individual faces in Unity? If i do have to UV map the model, is it possible to apply several different textures to it? Would i also make the 5 rooms separately or as one big mesh?
Yes you have to UV map it, and yes you can use different textures or materials or a combination of both or atlas a few textures in the same image and setup your UV’s accordingly to match, so you don’t end up using loads of textures when you could have got away with far fewer. There’s plenty of tutorials on UV mapping in your chosen package to be found on Google.