Making a monitor with an animated screen 2 textures or 1?

[CaptainCrazy]

I've done some research so i guess that my question is moderately simple enough. If i want to make a monitor with, for example, a screensaver animated texture on it. Would it be best to make a UV map for the monitor and keep the animated texture seperate or, somehow, make it work using alpha channel? I haven't used VTFEditor in quite some time, just glancing through the program i don't see an option that would give me, well, that option.

I don't mind making it separately it's just it'd be something i'd rather avoid..

Thanks

[Jordash]

It would be more efficient and easier to use two textures, may I ask why you want to avoid it? I don't understand what you think you could use the alpha channel for either.

If you make it all one texture, due to the compression of each frame the plastic of the monitor is likely have animated noise, plus it would also be a waste of memory storing the plastic in each frame of the animation. If the screen uses a different texture you could use scroll effects or a two texture to make a nicer looking animation.

[CaptainCrazy]

Well because the mod team i'm on always tell me to refrain from having a model with more than 1 UVW map on it because it causes lag to the maps?

Personally i find detail to be much higher on a texture if i UVW unwrap a model into 2 texture maps, especially if there is detail on the model.


I guess i'll go with the 2 texture thing then..

[Sathor]

Well because the mod team i'm on always tell me to refrain from having a model with more than 1 UVW map on it because it causes lag to the maps?

Seems more like a myth than anything else.

Use two textures ... or use two models, one for the screen and one for the rest. You can use different material types, then, too.

[CaptainCrazy]

You mean two different models attached to each other?

[Sathor]

No, I mean two different props. For example, if you create a car, you will make the glass in a different prop, because otherwise it will either give you metal bullet decals, or the whole car will behave like glass. So you make two different props.

You can do this with such screens, too. Just make sure the origin of the props fits, so placement is easy.

[CaptainCrazy]

Not sure if the mapper will be too keen on constantly placing things lol.

[Gary]

Instead of placing two props constantly, you could make a prefab.

[Stormy]

When you make the model just make bot of them with the same origin, that way they can place the box, then duplicate it where it is and change the model to the screen. And then make a prefab, like gary said. Sounds like you have a temperamental mapper, tell them to chill the fuck out. Multiple uv data couldn't make a difference, the only issue would be if you have two gigantic textures. If you are particularly worried about optimization, make your normal maps half the size of your diffuse maps, it's impossible to notice the difference if it's not a really important model.

[Gambini]

What B_S and Sathor say. Plus, it is very easy to make origins match if you make the whole thing inside one model and then export each part separately. They´ll share the exact same origin point.

[nub]

Well, making the screen a separate model from the monitor "cabinet" isn't that necessary. Making it one whole model and setting the surface prop type to "electronic" (or whatever it's called) is sufficient enough in my opinion. But yes, use a separate texture for the screen. It would be considerably more difficult to make one whole texture that only has a portion of it animated. Plus, if you decide to make the monitor a physical prop, you can make a second skin for the screen texture that makes it appear turned off.

Using more than one texture for a model is technically not as "efficient" as using one single texture, but that doesn't mean it's going to impact performance at all. Tech has come a long way and most computers can handle such things. Hell, back in the early days of 3D, artists would make several separate textures for one single model. Mostly because games couldn't really render large resolution textures. So to compensate, they'd use several separate textures for little details.

Besides, using more than one texture on a model is usually quicker and can end up looking a lot better, like in your case.