I am still very new to Unreal, so I’m sorry if this is a stupid question or anything.
I want to make a house, but I have a question about the walls/ceiling. Someone told me to first block out the level with brushes, and later replace them with meshes. So I did that and now I want to make models for the walls and replace the brushes, but the problem is that all walls are all different sizes, and there are a lot of them.
My question is:
If i’m going to make models for the walls, can I use one model for multiple walls that are all different sizes? How does that work?
Do I have to make a different model for each wall, because all walls have different sizes, but other than the size, all walls are going to be the same. And having so many walls, it will take a lot of time the do that just for the size.
Another option is make one model, import it to unreal, and then change the size for each wall. The problem with that is, i think, that there are going to be problems with texturing and stuff.
Another method I found was breaking the wall in different pieces with the same size, what allows me to make one model and use that for every wall piece. The problem with that is however, that it will take more time to build my level than with whole walls, and I also heard people say that it will cause problems with lighting and that it will reduce the performance.
So how do you guys build a house? Is there a way that I don’t see what is super obvious?, because I’m still new here, so maybe i‘m doing something wrong.
You don’t necessarily need to block things out if you’re doing archviz, if that’s the case. Blocking out helps to design gameplay so that you don’t waste time with graphics and have to change stuff later.
For house interiors, it’s easiest to just model the walls in your 3D software rather than making one mesh and sizing it to each wall. I’d usually have the walls of each room as one mesh.
You said that you have the walls of each room as one mesh. But you still have to make a different model for each room right. Is there no other way to model just one wall and use that everywhere?
Because I want to make lots of corridors which are all going to be different lengths, and having to model just one wall and place it everywhere would be so much more time saving. Especially if they are, except for the length, going to be the exact same.
You can always just take a wall and make it some specific size (like 1m x 1m) and then scale it to whatever size you want, but there’s some things to consider, like how much time that takes vs. modeling which will be faster, and also that having each wall as a separate mesh will increase the number of objects and increase draw calls which impact performance.
It really depends on the situation and what you can do.
the issue with scaling is your UVs.
If you use Vertex Painting the vertices are also stretched when you stretch the mesh to fit.
You can use World Aligned Textures and make a stretching wall in a few minutes, complete of Normals, but then you won’t be able to vertex paint detail on it to break textures and you’ll have to relay on texture scattering overlays to achieve that (which doesn’t quite work on the normal map).
Regarding the draw call performance, that’s very give and take. More objects more occlusion, less items active at once if your bounds are set correctly. That’s the give.
obviously if every tile on a wall is a separate mesh you just kill performance. That’s the take.
Either way. What you are looking to develop is a modular set of tiles that you can snap to one another to create the corridors and rooms.
I would suggest making a few different sizes - which you can actually get from actual construction. Ei: the size of a drywall panel.
You have full, half vertical, and 1 quarter - with that you can tile to pretty much anything.
door placement might require specific meshes, as you don’t want to have Z fighting on the meshes or stretch them which causes texture distortion unless you are set up to handle that.
in the end it’s your decision of how you do it, but you can refer to any Modular Level tutorial for ideas.