UV Unwrapping question

[seth]

I'm finally making my first model, and it's a Japanese style bridge. It's very basic right now, but still over 7000 tris. Is that number acceptable for use as a static prop?

My real question, however, is unwrapping the actual model. I'd like to get to texturing it, but I have no idea how to cut the thing up. Do I have to group everything together first and mark tons of seams? How do I keep track of what exactly is what when I unwrap? It all looks super jumbled and I don't know how anyone knows what anything is.

Here's a render of my model w/ AO if anyone has any ideas. I do get the general idea of unwrapping and texturing, but for a model like this I have no idea how to do it.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

Round things will indeed take up a lot of faces, but this might be a good time to learn about LOD (level of detail). Round things are also a good place for aggressive LOD optimization because you really only need the detail up close. (someone else can better answer the UV questions than I)

 

[seth]

Round things will indeed take up a lot of faces, but this might be a good time to learn about LOD (level of detail). Round things are also a good place for aggressive LOD optimization because you really only need the detail up close. (someone else can better answer the UV questions than I)

The railings are actually quite square. I think it's just the sheer amount of different objects I have.

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Could you post a picture of the object with face edges turned on?

 

[Beetle]

UV mapping is far from an exact science. It's more so from experience about what looks best.

 

[seth]

Could you post a picture of the object with face edges turned on?

I can't actually, that would require me to group everything together and that won't work because I have several objects following paths to create that curved bridge shape.

UV mapping is far from an exact science. It's more so from experience about what looks best.

Is it more about you understanding where everything is? Cause I'd really like to just split the whole thing down the middle, at least I could understand what everything is then.

 

[DOMINATOR]

your image link doesnt work in OP.

(Guess here on what model looks like) select faces for 1 rail at a time and cylindrical map it. duplicate this process for all rails on bridge.
what modeling software are you using?

 

[Seba]

This thread hasn't been updated in ~2 months, common sense says Sevin isn't working on this anymore.

 

[seth]

Yeah I scrapped the bridge but thanks for the tip anyway dominator!