Design house and roof.

Hello.

I'm trying to create some modular houses for my 3d game, but i don't know what's the best method to design this.
I need the floor, house structure and the roof to be separated and to match together. Should i model them in separated parts like wall, window, door, etc... Or model the entire house as a whole and then the roof to match it?
If the best method is making them by pieces, how many of these wall/floor/roof parts i would need and what's the best size for them?

 

There is not one way to do this. Think about re-usability. If you break the houses into parts and keep the roof separate, you can make houses that look different so instead of a street with a row of identical houses, you can mix up the parts, some single story, some wood, some brick, etc.

If you are custom making each house then you can make each house one part.

The answer to your question is...whatever way works best for the level you are designing.

 

Can characters go inside the house(s)?

 

Modular environment design. Search that term and you can find enough reading material to keep you busy for the next year. But if you are in the stage of asking this question, most likely you won't understand a lot of it.

The key is to get started and output prototype models as fast as you can. Then you start testing out your idea's, and as you run into problems then that information you found will start making sense. Don't try to understand first. It's too complex. The fastest way to learn how to build a house is to get down and dirty with the carpenters, right? You've got to start doing, and then your questions will become more specific.

I'd give you a more straight answer, but it's complex and not easily summarized. And, as stated, there isn't one right way. I could say, one mesh per material, but that isn't true all of the time. So much depends on all the nuances of your own project and it's goals. To get more than very broad answers here, you have to ask more specific questions.

 

Thanks for the answer.

Yes.

Thanks for the answer.
I'm actualy used to do modular stuff, but i always have trouble with making houses modular specialy the roof... I'm with serious doubt if i model the whole house and the roof separetely, but if i do that i'll need to model a handful of houses for the sake of variability, or i could make various "pieces" (wich works great for my project) but i don't know how many of these house/roof pieces i'll need or how to make them properly (a image showing this would help a lot).
Also, if i do the roof flat won't it look less entertaining?
Note: its for a top-down game.

 

You've just got to start prototyping. It depends on so many factors, there is no way to give a useful answer. I don't know what the project looks like, what it runs on, what the timeframe is, how fast you work, what the graphics budget is, what style is....

When you figure all of this out, you just do some math. Ok, if I make five bottom parts of houses, and then i make 5 different roof styles, that gives me how many variations? And if I make three texture variations for each house, whats the number then? Maybe I only have 6 months to get this all done, but i want the houses to look good and unique more than having lots of variations. SO i figure i can get one house done per week, so where does that put me? Should I get variation from changing textures? Or using a few modular floater pieces? Is my game such that my houses could just be rectangles with triangle roofs? If so, I could make 50 of those in that time and as many texture variations.... etc etc etc

And what of performance? Will most houses be rendered on screen? Only a select few at a time? Would atlassing your materials make sense? Would combining as many prefab houses into a single material as possible make sense? Do you need a 2k material per house because that artistic vision demands so much detail?

You just got to think through this stuff. The questions you are asking are too broad for somebody to give you an easy answer to.

 

No matter what you do, you will end up doing it again. Hopefully you plan well enough taht you don't have to completely do things over, but this is why prototyping first is key. Don't bother with UV's and texturing and, possibly, rigging at first. Just get somethhing simple in engine that you can use to test your theories out. Try to find all the mistakes and work out a solution. Then, when you are 90% sure that your idea works, then you go through and put the time and effort to make the final models.... but always keep in mind a workflow that allows you to change as much as possible at any point. Keep your texture project files, save away your base models, work with layers whenever possible....

Looking at the ways others have done similar systems will help a lot. There is so much out there, like I mentioned. Spend a few hours just skimming through whatever you can find, make a very rough basic plan, try it out. After htat first try, then you will start understanding what the important questions are, and you will start generating more pointed questions, and you will start getting much closer to your final goal.

 

PLenty game have extensive modular house, you can just study what they do, start with the sims!