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Creating Updatable Texture Maps With Illustrator Artboards

We’ve all got a handle on creating texture maps, but when it comes to updating them quickly, Adobe Illustrator artboards can save the day! With this method, every time you update the textures in Illustrator, it will automatically update the texture maps.

Plus, many of the Adobe Illustrator features allow for easier updates across a series of artboard textures. Global color change, updating linked elements, and changing fonts are just a few items that can be handled all at once in Illustrator.

Step by step instructions after the video.

Here is a quick step by step guide:

  1. Inside your 3D software, determine the rectangular size of each texture map you will need.

  2. Create and name textures for each of the objects (textureA, textureB, etc). Assign the textures to the objects or faces.

  3. In Adobe Illustrator, create artboards at the proportional (or scaled) sizes for each of the textures needed.

    1. See our blog post about drawing to scale in Illustrator

  4. Save your Illustrator project with a file name related to your project (ProjectX)

  5. In the artboards panel, change the name of each of your artboards to relate to the name of the associated textures (textureA, textureB, etc). You can choose any name you want or stick with the standard artboard names, but it is easier if the names relate.

  6. Design your textures in Illustrator

  7. Use Export As… in Illustrator and in the dialog box check “Use Illustrator Artboards” and then select you file type.

    1. This will export file names ProjectX_textureA.jpg and so on

  8. Export out to your textures folder

  9. In your 3D software, add each texture map to the associated texture

    1. ProjectX_textureA.jpg to Texture A diffuse channel (or alpha channel is you want, you can have separate artboards for diffuse and alpha, just name the artboards accordingly)

  10. Now, the fun part: If you make changes in Illustrator, just run Export as… again (be sure to check “Use Illustrator Artboards”) and it will save over all of the textures. Hit reload textures in your 3D software and BOOM, all the texture maps will update automatically.

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