Need help verifying low-poly integrity

cookedpeanut

Hi guys,

I'll be honest, I haven't done much work with game assets. I'd like some help quickly verifying that my low-poly is in shape and ready for unwrapping, and crits? What I have here is a red dot sight that's going to be imported into Arma III.
Here's the model:
[SKETCHFAB]32280e1aea9f44cc80589fe9cff37022[/SKETCHFAB]
How should I approach unwrapping this model?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Luka

the entire laser emmiter is to hipoly on the gamemodel. doesnt even need to have the emmiter modeled, plus so many pointless edgeloops, like its meant for SubD

cookedpeanut

Mybad, I was trying to keep the silhouette... Besides the emitter, does everything else look OK?

Adij

Model low versions of the knob's - you will have hard times addding them just to texture - they are to big for this - at least without distortion's.

Luka

you need those bolts on the sides of the mount on the lowpoly. then you need to optimise the big knob, as its too many sides, plus the top has some verts that dont add to the shape at all.

basically go gover your model and keep asking yourself, does the shape changealot if i take away this vertex? if the answer is no, your NM can take care of any small erroers.

good luck

cookedpeanut

Is it OK to have sharp edges on the low-poly, should I not bevel the edges so the NM bake translates better?

Bek

That's almost a two-part question; you might find these links answer it:

http://tech-artists.org/wiki/Beveling

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196 (You've probably already seen this?)

Short answer is you can bevel if you think it benefits the silhouette significantly. If the normal map could smooth the edge sufficiently then you don't have to bevel.

EarthQuake

Need more sides on the big curve of the sight itself, this will look obviously lowpoly in FPV.

Think about geometry density in general, for instance that round knob on top has more sides to define its roundness that the big curves of the scope, which will be more visible to the player because of the way they face the camera.

Its also important to match the lowpoly to the sub-divided highpoly, not the pre-subdivsion cage mesh.

The base of the sight and the laser projector bit should be a seamless mesh, no need for a separate mesh chunk there (you don't need a seperate chunk in the low for all seperate chunks in the high).

No need to model the indent around the lower dial, won't ever be seen. If it will be seen, make sure to match the same amount of sides on the cylinder as on the indent.