Overlapping Elements

Armitage19

Hey,


I started to learn 3ds Max a few months ago and when i did open projects of other people. I noticed that many elements or objects are overlapping for having a certain visual look of a object.
For example a weapon grip, i watched some tutorials for making a weapon grip and people are overlapping the elements or meshes.
Now i am working on my first own project and so far the whole mesh is just one element. Nothing overlapping or something like that.
But this way to model needs a lot of time.
And i am not sure its even worth it.

Are there any advantages or disadvantages between this two model styles?

My target for my mesh is Unreal Engine.

Thanks

Eric Chadwick

Yes, there are benefits to this approach.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal_Map_Modeling#Low-Poly_Mesh

Obscura

Division should be done as it is/would be in the real life. If the given object is from 2 parts, then you should use 2 elements on the model(highpoly). Floating geo is fine, it can speed things up, but it works only, if you are baking it to a lower poly mesh. It won't really work in films for example, but you should still apply the element thing. For lowpoly, it depends. Sometimes its better to use individual elements, sometimes you make one unified mesh with one element, and you bake every detail.

Armitage19

Ok, thanks for the infos.
My mesh has so far about 80k polys and it will go to around 200k polys.
And maybe i try to sell the end product in Turbosquid.
A high poly mesh with a lot of floating geo overlapping each other wont be good for that.