Modular environments help save time in their creation and resources because it allows the game engine to instance objects to save processing power or memory.
Texture mapping using a 'Main Texture map' or 'Texture Atlas' is when there are multiple textures in the scene saved into the same texture file, usually in a large 1024, 2048 or 4096 texture.
To create a 'Texture Atlas' in Photoshop we need to first choose a square image size ideally big enough to meet the texture space needs and then using the 'Guides, Grid & Slices' preferences we typically set up the Grid line to be every 128, 256 or 512 pixels. The subdivisions option can be set to 2 or 4 depending on if we need extra grid lines. It is important to be sure the grid is set to use Pixels as the measurement.
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| Example of how a Texture Atlas holds different textures |
Once we have created a 'Texture Atlas' we can create a plane object in 3ds Max with an equal amount of segments as the texture (length and height are 1 meter). Converting the plane into an editable poly then allows us to select the faces of the parts we need (such as a door or a window) then we can click on 'Detach' under the 'Edit Geometry' options in the Modify panel.
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| A quick example |
This is just a quick example I have made in order for me to explain how practically this can be used in game design to speed up the process of level creation; creating cut out objects from a texture map allows us to quickly create a level and it is useful for creating modular pieces (like lego) as all of the objects will be of the same sizes.
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