How do I texture a 3D model for games?

Texture a 3D model for games in four steps. Unwrap the mesh so every face has space on a texture. Choose a workflow, usually a reusable trim sheet or a unique atlas. Create the base color, roughness, metallic, and normal maps. Assign those maps in the engine and check them under the lights used in the game. A trim sheet is the fast version of that workflow. You paint strips of edge wear, panels, and materials once, then place many props onto those strips with their UVs. One texture covers doors, pipes, crates, and walls, and the texel size stays even across the set. Teams use this for modular environments, hard-surface props, and support assets that do not each need a unique paint pass. Start with a clean unwrap. Keep shells non-overlapping unless a mirror is intentional. Hold texel density steady so a crate and a wall read at the same sharpness. Leave unique space only for faces that need a one-off detail, such as a logo or a worn hero edge. Stretched UVs show up as smeared pixels, so fix the unwrap before you spend time on the material. The rest of the process is the same in Unity, Unreal, Godot, and Blender. Plug the base color into the color input, roughness into roughness, metallic into metallic, and the normal map into the normal input. Then orbit the asset in the game lighting. If the highlight is too sharp, raise roughness. If a surface that should be paint reads as chrome, lower metallic. TrimSheetFast builds the trim sheet for that workflow. Mark each strip on a template, describe the material in plain language, and generate the atlas plus the PBR maps. Export the PNGs and assign them to one material shared by the set. Save hand painting for the hero assets that truly need a unique pass.