Low Poly Models and Even Texturing

My question is about models and texturing them using materials like in real life. Its hard to explain what I mean but I will try!

Instead of having a unique texture map for all models is it possible to create models and just apply a material to them like wood or metal which is applied evenly across the objects regardless of their UV’s? Or some sort of UV technique which is handy for creating even UV’s across a models surface so applying shaders / materials to them is simple?

I am looking at making a game which has simple graphics but is more about the simulation of the world and the gameplay, at least to start with, and I am looking for a game which is low poly stylized with simple colors and shaders to give the sense of what materials objects are made from.

So if you have 3 swords next to each other and one was wooden, one was iron and the other was a rare alloy, the hilt has one material applied to it, the blade has another etc and each of these materials can be applied seperatly from each other. So I could have a sword with an Ebony hilt and a wooden blade which is diamond encrusted but I don’t have to think about UV’s.

I understand this may appear like a lazy way of making a game but I am wanting to do it this way for a reason.

I want to get straight to the programming, level design and testing and not have to spend too much time making detailed assets.

Low poly simple style for a unique look, low computer spec requirement.

I want it to look good but I don’t want it to look realistic.

Potential to redo assets to a higher quality later when I am happy with the direction the game is going in.

Do you understand where I am coming from?

I appreciate any feedback I can get as I am really excited to get started properly with this and I wait patiently (ARGHHGHGH) for your replies!

o/

Unity can automatically generate UV for lightmapping (in Model window : Meshes > Generate Lightmap UV’s) and you can choose the UV channel for secondary maps in standard shader (in shader window : UV set > UV1). I think it’s the easiest solution for you.

Sounds like you want to use a triplanar shader with UVs based on world space. Like, for example: Radiator Blog: A smoother triplanar shader for Unity.

@Deadlyapples The triplanar method that Tanoshimi suggests is one way, another is to use a three-dimensional texture and then use the object’s local XYZ in place of UVW in the texture lookup.

I assume that this would need a custom shader; I don’t think Unity has built-in support for 3-D textures.

Since your objects are low-poly, I assume low-res textures are okay, so the memory usage of the 3-D textures should not be a problem.

Another possibility is to forego texturing altogether and just use Unity materials.