Rail tracks model and UV mapping finished.

I decided that before I start trying to unwrap the UVs for my buildings in my town model (I may just use the draft model and add to it or I might create a new model. I haven't yet decided but I think making a new model will only take about 3 hours at most so I'm not afraid about time limits; I will be keeping the model simple and low poly.) that I would continue with something easy to give myself a bit of practice with unwrapping UVs, I made the mistake last time of thinking that the cow skull would be an easy thing to practice on but it was actually a lot more complicated than I was expecting, this time around I just started with the rail tracks as it mostly consists of modified cuboids.

I was successful and managed to unwrap all of my UVs in a few hours, the rails actually took a lot longer than I was expecting because they consist of lots of long rectangles and finding which one went where was much more of a problem than I was expecting.

I had considered changing the logs that I used for the tracks before for rectangular planks but I thought that the details in the planks would make it harder to unwrap the UVs, after finished unwrapping the rails I realised that actually rectangular planks would probably be a lot easier to unwrap and in total creating the mesh for them and unwrapping ended up taking no longer than 25 minutes so I was glad that I decided to change them, they look a lot nicer than the logs and because of the nature of the planks weathering shapes, I decided that I could get away with using just one plank model repeated where with the logs I was using about 3 or 4 separate log models.

I had already given the rails themselves some form and twisting shape to give them character and give more of an element of 'terrain' to my level rather than just having a flat boring ground, but with the planks I also wanted to give them some signs of age and use, I used the split polygon tool to create some grooves in the wood in a style that I thought was characteristic to wood. I wanted to keep the model itself simple so I just stuck to the split polygon tool and I think that it was sufficient. after that when placing the planks on the rails I  made them uneven and wonky with uneven space between each plank; I wanted to give the impression of an old mine cart track that had never really been taken care of but had been used over the years, this was to keep up with the setting and create and atmosphere using the assets.