TRIM TEXTURE TUTORIAL - ENVIRONMENT ART 101

Free 4 Part Tutorial Series on making trim sheets:

Using Trim textures is an essential skill for any environment or asset artist. You can use a small library of detailed trim sheets to quickly add detail and create modular kits, while keeping your memory budget under control. This is an extremely common practice in game development.
Links to the examples shown at the end:

[MatthewMarquit]

Notable Time-stamps:

0:00 - Introduction
3:31 - Within Unreal / explanation & example of trim textures
6:15 - Within Substance Painter / explanation & example of trim textures
6:59 - 3ds Max & Zbrush geometry creation for trim sheet (Sped-up)
7:36 - Further explanation of trim textures
12:24 - How the unwrap affects trim textures (Circular Floor)
19:25 - Modeling tips for trim textures (Pillar & Curved Wall)
27:02 - Using trim textures on small objects (Pottery)
31:36 - Balancing high and low detail within trim textures
33:10 - More examples of professional trim texture usage
35:43 - Conclusion / Wrap-up

[JagaimoLoco]

Man, I'm confounded. I begged instructors to discuss this kind of stuff during classes earlier this year and they just glossed past it. It's equal parts essential and useful as hell! Thanks so much dude

[MerryMac]

I have no idea how many hours of my life I have spent looking for EXACTLY this information!!! THANK YOU!!!! Why is this so seldom touched on in tutorials when it's so important?!?!?!

[Kalyptic]

21:56 So simple but yet sometimes stuff like this eludes your mind, totally forgot I can do this😅

[jasonvoor]

What was really confusing for me back when I started working with games and engines, was the MAJOR difference between a trim / atlas texture and a lightmap texture. The short version, which I came to understand the hard way is - trim/atlas textures CAN have UV islands overlapped, lightmap textures CANNOT.
In your 3D modelling program, you should have TWO sets of textures - on channel 1 (which will be channel 0 in UE4) you have your UV islands mapped according to your texture, overlapping or not, and on channel 2 (which will be channel 1 in UE4), you have your UV islands spread across the whole texture (0, 1 space) with some gap between the different islands (people recommend 3px, I can't say for sure, because I seem to always have problems regardless of how much px gap I leave). They MUST NOT overlap, or otherwise you'll get visual artifacts after baking.
Another thing I learned the hard way - if you manual unfold, all the sharp edges in your model (edges > 45°) should have seems.

[berca]

almost 20 years in game industry as a 2D/3D enviro artist. I went from this type of trim texturing to unique UVs and now I'm getting back again. It's nice to refresh memory :-)

Great tutorial btw. Keep up great work! ;-)

[cyd_hunter]

So much of this video was answering questions I've had for months but could never even figure out how to ask to begin with. Thanks so much for this video!

[FoamBananaz]

As someone who's self taught through youtube tutorials over the last year, seeing the UV layout at 16:38 blew my mind a little bit, the sky just opened up before my eyes LOL! Thank you so much for all of your tutorials, they're so helpful!

[Walkion]

God damn, finally someone that is explaining clearly how you make and use those trim sheets. I never found anyone really taking the time to explain that correctly before, what a shame really. Thank you so much for what you do, its really cool, i'm gonna help support you in return for that, you just made yourself a fan!

[elliotarmstrong]

I have started learning environment art the last few weeks. I appreciate you explaining the reason and theory behind why its such an important skill to have. I haven't worked in the industry so memory constraints aren't an issue on my small personal projects. I will definitely learn more about trim sheets! Thanks you for sharing!

[DanyGates]

Ohhh yes man, this content is like pure gold!!

[Just__Jamiegk]

I have only recently heard about the concept of Trim Sheets and this is mind blowing. I am very much self taught and do the whole beginner thing of unique unwrapping everything I do, sometimes sharing a UV map across several things that may not need too much detail. This will be a game changer. I can't wait to play with that.

[playonce]

wow this is what i was wondering all the time" how do those big buildings have such a high texel density?" this video explained it perfectly!

[rancheraosborne]

I am very glad that you listen to your community, you are the best teacher I ever had.
I wish you the best possible luck in your life and career because you deserve it.
Thank you again.

[ChrisD__]

I'm a hobbyist character artist who usually uses procedural textures for everything. This is mindblowing, there's _so_ many uses for this!

[robertmoats]

This is the first time I've seen one of your videos, so figured I should comment. Your videos are definitely at a professional level, yet they come across as friendly and informal. You communicate like a normal guy that's trying to teach his friends how to do something, and it works very well. Well done!

[normalweird]

This is the first time I've really understood what trim sheets are and how to use them, thanks for making these videos!!

[MercStrider]

15:25 about going beyond the bounds of the first UV block is really cool. It actually make a lot of sense, but I thought it would "break" something so I've never done it. Thanks for this!

[lis_rigel]

a huge preesh for you, man, i've struggled with this stuff by myself a lot, but yours tutorial explains and shows a lot in a simple and understandable way. thank you. i'd give my kidney for our teachers explained this stuff to us as you did.

[angiemon]

I seriously love you. At first I was kinda "afraid" I might miss out on some awesome hacks because I use Maya and not Max, but as you've mentioned, by the time you explained UVs I didn't even realize this wasn't Maya at first because it was all so clear in itself, thank you!! :D
(honestly, everyone struggling with this, just watch an up-to-date Maya UV Tool Tutorial, there are so many profound ones out there, then you just immediately know what's the Maya counterpart of what he's doing and where to find it)
SO comprehensive and helpful!