accurate facade joints

accurate facade joints

I'm just looking for a push in the right direction to see if it is possible to do this: I am trying to accurately represent/dimension stone joints on a facade, a facade that will also need to look weathered. Each stone will also need to look like an individual stone (slightly different color/texture). The coursing is specific, so it can't be a generic image pasted on. I've attached an image of the look that I'm trying to do. In the past, I've learned a lot just from an example or a hint of where I need to go.

Thanks.

Well, the obvious way to achieve this is to use actual geometry -- e.g. either a rectangular prism for each rock, or a quad for each face and some careful UV mapping. It's not going to be especially pleasant or easy.

Ok, thinking out loud - would a quick way be to create a photoshop image with the right coloration and joints of the whole facade, and a bump map of same? and somehow adjust the texture on the facade to be where I need it?

Creating a single giant texture for the whole facade will work fine, but it's not a generalized approach. I assumed you were trying to avoid that.

I guess I am trying to avoid a generalized approach, but if each facade has its own window openings, lintels, joints, then maybe there is no generalized approach. I could see making a texture of each whole facade and doing it that way or as you suggested, making unique stones.

You could probably use a hybrid approach.

Use individual faces for specific stones (e.g. the stone over a window opening) and large quads for other areas of all. Then build a bunch of tiling materials and map them onto the large quads and assign "single stone" material to the specific stones. There's a script for "unitizing" UV maps which would help with this approach.

Thanks. good idea. The stones around certain areas are important, the others are important in their height, and coursing, but are more of a background. I'll give it a try.