Learning about Trim Sheets

I identify trim sheets as a method to greatly increase the efficiency and speed of my workflow. I have been researching the concept and whilst I find the technique very appealing, I'm a little apprehensive about how to implement them.

I found a decent overview of the whole concept from principal environment artist at Insomniac games Morten Olsen called The Ultimate Trim (2015). In this guide Olsen gives an overview of the basic workflow and illustrates how the technique can be adapted to use multiple texture variations without the need for new UV sets or baking of normals.

Olsen does an excellent job explaining the technique and demonstrating the obvious benefits of streamlining the production of art assets. However there are still some things I don't understand. I'm still not sure how the UV maps for assets are supposed to correspond to the trim sheets. Some assets are going to require a larger UV area so how can they overlap the same texture set?

I'm going to be experimenting in 3DS Max and following along with some video tutorials so I can practice making my own trim sheets. I may not use this technique for my major project as I fear trying to get a better understanding and adapting it to my workflow may cost me precious time and slow things down in the long run. I would say I understand the benefits of using trim sheets, I'm just not sure what the best way of using them is.

Video Tutorial:

Update - I found a pretty good tutorial that answered my question about the UV mapping process. I created a quick normal map in photoshop and tried to align the surfaces of the UV's across the same texture. I found you can extend your UV Islands beyond the grid and the material will repeat the pattern. Below you can see the quick normal map pattern I made:

You can see how I have mapped this same texture across multiple objects, albeit rather hastily:

So I believe I understand the concept, but I'm not too confident in using it reliably yet. I will keep experimenting because I think this is a good chance to get faster at creating assets although I may not have the time for the major project to standardise my workflow to use trim sheets effectively.

SHENIOUS. UV unwrapping technique: Trim Sheets. [Online Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS0k2SBEQDI [Accessed: 19th April 2018]

OLSEN, M. (2015) The Ultimate Trim: Texturing Techniques of Sunset Overdrive- GDC 2015. [Online] Available from: https://gdcvault.com/play/1022324/The-Ultimate-Trim-Texturing-Techniques [Accessed: 19th April2018]