Should Every Different Textured Piece Be It's Own Object

Question

Just looking for best practice here. Let's say I'm building a house. The roof, windows, door and shutters are all different textures. Should this all be one object or multiple objects (and if so, should they all be parented to the same object?)?

I would assume they should be different objects so I can apply different textures. Is this the correct assumption?

Thanks!

possible duplicate of What are the benefits of modeling in one piece, or as separate parts? — David, Nov 29 '14 at 21:34
@David Not a duplicate IMO, this is asking about separate objects from a texturing point of view, while that question is asking about separate pieces (possibly in the same object) from a modeling point of view. — gandalf3, Nov 30 '14 at 00:28
Allen Gingrich, to avoid asking questions that cause opinion based arguments on various forums and Q&A sites, you might reword it to something more like: "What are some of the pros and cons of..." instead of asking "what is best..." it helps keep things running a bit more peacefully. — MarcClintDion, Nov 30 '14 at 11:33

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 29 '14 at 21:46

If you're just concerned about how the object looks, there might not be any reason to make them separate objects; multiple materials can be assigned to a single object:

Add a material slot and new material
Select some vertices
Assign the material to the selected vertices

enter image description here

brasshat · Answer 2 · 2014-11-30T15:59:10.717

In my view, the answer is going to depend upon a number of other considerations. If you're creating meshes for a model of a house, and you're going to want the choice of showing the windows and doors either open or closed, you will need every window and door you want to be able to modify individually to be independent both from the main mesh, and from the other windows and doors you want to be able to modify. If you want a weather vane on the roof, and want it to be able to indicate the virtual wind, part of the weather vane needs to be a separate object, too, so that it can be rotated. However, this principle does not necessarily apply to texturing, as the same texture can be applied to multiple materials by means of careful unwrapping / mapping.

Should Every Different Textured Piece Be It's Own Object

2 Answers2