FPS Weapon Creation General Rules
polycounter lvl 8
Hey all,
I've been dedicating my portfolio creation time to firearms and I was hoping to gather some general rules on creating an efficient workflow. Below are some of my questions I would like to have some clarification on.
- Tri-Counts for current gen? I know the general rule is as low as possible, but what is considered overkill?
- UV mapping for first person. Is the general rule to use larger texture space for the parts of the gun that are most visible to the player? What about the main body. I've found it's best to keep the UV's the same size based on material types.
-Map sizes?
-Accessories/attachments on the same UV or their own separate one?
Basically any "rules" that are applied when creating firearms would be greatly appreciated.
I've been dedicating my portfolio creation time to firearms and I was hoping to gather some general rules on creating an efficient workflow. Below are some of my questions I would like to have some clarification on.
- Tri-Counts for current gen? I know the general rule is as low as possible, but what is considered overkill?
- UV mapping for first person. Is the general rule to use larger texture space for the parts of the gun that are most visible to the player? What about the main body. I've found it's best to keep the UV's the same size based on material types.
-Map sizes?
-Accessories/attachments on the same UV or their own separate one?
Basically any "rules" that are applied when creating firearms would be greatly appreciated.
Replies
UV mapping: Generally your uv density should be consistent, except for places that are visible up close, those should get more detail. Areas you can zoom in on (iron sights, scopes, etc) should get even more detail. Sometimes you can drop detail on areas that will never be seen in first person, like the very front and rear parts of the asset.
Map sizes, again this will vary. Between 1k to 4k.
Attachments on the same UV map? This really depends on the project, yet again. If you have a swappable attachment system, you should use different maps for attachments. If your asset is entirely unique and will always be seen in the same configuration, theres no reason to split up the maps. Less maps means less PSDs to worry about, and less draw calls which is better for performance, this applies generally to game assets not necessarily specific to weapons.
For portfolio work, use as much geometry and texture detail as you need to make it look badass, while still being efficient and use common sense for mesh density. For instance, don't give 32 sides to a tiny screw while using 32 sides for a scope, that sort of thing.
For professional work, someone will tell you all of these things.
Tri-count as EarthQuake said.
UV Mapping - imo depends if you're making only FPP or FPP & TPP+LODS and if you're using detail maps to add a pattern (this bases on texel and should have constand size, right?). If answer for both questions is no, then you could differentiate your texel highly. Spend more uv space for parts near player's eyes.
For FPP sniper rifles with which I've been working on, scopes had the same texture size as the the rest of a weapon and 2/3-3/4 of triangles (cuz scopes are round).
About attachments again exactly as EarthQuake said. Completely unique weapons should have all on its texture. If you want to use even smallest part from it in another weapon, engine will have to load whole texture of the other weapon. If you will have many reapeatable attachments, put them on all on a single texture created especially for attachments.
From myself I will add that: weapons which appeared in tpp and fpp view, we made shorter and wider for fpp.
Another thought and dillema could be to use hard-edges or single smoothing group? I think it depends from triangles budget. If it's high, you could make chamfers and use single smoothing group. I am curious what other artists think about it.