How to texture levels? How to reuse/tile textures?

Development Rendering
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Hi, I’m planning on becoming a video game texture artist and plan on creating a simple game and a couple of Unreal Tournament Maps. I know How to texture characters already (it’s relatively straightforward), but texturing levels seems so much more complex/esoteric? I’m not sure where to start.
I discovered that it might not be such a great idea to use texture atlases (because of the way UE4 works), and it might just be better to use multiple textures instead and fewer materials instances to save on draw calls instead.

So how do I go about texturing levels and using tiling textures (creating the textures and reusing them to save memory and time vs hand painting/using a unique texture for every part of the environment)?
Exactly how “expensive” is vertex painting?
How exactly do I fix/hide the texture bleeding? Should I texture my environment in the Unreal Engine or in Maya?

I would also like to know if there are any “best practices” for texturing levels I should know before going further in my career.

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…bump…

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Smart uses of UV mapping and/or triplanar projection.

Pretty cheap, it gets more expensive when you add things like POM or fancy blending.

Better UVs?

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  1. grab one of “Learn” projects, like Kite, or Showdown VR Demo, or Infiltrator, and take a look
  2. you would also benefit from the material tutorials because it’s useful to understand the basic methods
  3. depending on the game, you may have an emphasis on unique textures, materials mixing tiled textures, triplanars
  4. Substance Painter is a great tool that will let you get acceptable results even on early stages
  5. vertex paint is not expensive; to be more precise, vertex colors are not expensive; it’s all about how the vertex color masks are used in materials
  6. best practices do exist, and a lot of them are designed for specific cases. compare Kite demo with ActionRPG for example
  7. good luck!

edit: don’t get too fancy with triplanars, they carry extra cost and should be used carefully