Texturing

Usually, I start by checking my 3d model if I can apply fully procedural textures and shaders. The great thing about that is, that you can do it completely inside of Blender, you don’t have to import any external textures. Blender has some great functionality to quickly project procedural textures onto the model without adding any UV maps. This is especially useful when you have a sculpting with a bad topology and you don’t want to do a retopo, e.g. for a quick still render. Also, a nice side effect of procedural shaders is, that you can use them on any other model since they are not connected with a UV map.

If the procedural-only-workflow is not possible, since you can’t create any texture out of procedural textures in Blender, I use seamless textures. Usually, I create my own using a tool called PixPlant. In Blender, you can use seamless textures similar to procedural ones, since you don’t necessarily need a UV map here. This is great if you quickly want to add textures to your vehicles, like rusted metal, scratches etc. A pointiness attribute helps you to detect cavity and edges on your model. This is useful to mix different seamless textures so that you have e.g. worn edges on your model. This works also without UV maps and automatically adjusts when the shape of the model is changing. Super flexible!