I’ve tried doing both, but I always end up running into issues. I feel as if I’m using way too many parts when I’m using multiple parts with my roads, but when I use textures I struggle to find a good series of textures, or it just doesn’t come out how I want it to.
My problem usually comes into effect when I begin to use curves or when it comes to creating intersections. There are pros and cons to using both methods, but what’s really the best? What are some suggestions when it comes to infrastructure other than using free models?
i think parts are better.
Unless you are going to take/make pictures of roads, parts are superior. using parts allows you to directly edit the road, like the stripes or sidewalk. using too many parts should not be a concern as it will not impact performance too much, if anchored.
textures may require less work, but it doesn’t look very good. providing depth is a good idea. having a flat sidewalk is a sad sidewalk.
I highly advise not using free models. making everything yourself guarantees the safety of the model. viruses / malicious scripts are frequent in free models
Everybody has their own build styles and there is no written rule on how roads should be built, but here’s what I noticed over the past few years of working on numerous projects involving urban development: Using textures is more effective than having roads made out of parts in the long run in terms of saving time having flexibility over your roads, especially when they are both designed with modularity in mind.
If your goal is realism and plan on focusing on detailing such as accurate road surface markings, it is easier to apply textures as you could easily modify them using pixels on a third-party graphics editing software with only a few clicks away instead of spending significant amount of resources on physically building in the specific lines. It is also way more resource-intensive to work with physical parts when it comes to curves as you would have to edit individual parts within the road model, as it would take much more time and sacrifice performance due to the sheer number of parts you have to work with.
Same thing could be said for non-realistic roads, especially if the roads are for a non-realistic game. It would be much less resource-intensive as you would have less things to worry about as realism is thrown out the window.
My conclusion: in the long run, you will save much time and resources if you utilize textures instead of parts. In terms of performance, a texture that is 128 x 128 pixels is much more efficient than a piece of modular road made out of 10+ parts.
From my experience, using textures for road markings is better in terms of performance. Meshes or parts for markings are more easily customizable, but increase the part count very fast.
It also takes less time to apply a texture to roads instead of spending hours adding part/mesh markings to every road.