How would an object like this be divided up?

NURBS

I'm modeling and texturing a gun I'm going to try to make functional inside Unity as practice. I have it all modeled out, low & high poly, but I'm a bit confused on something; in a professional environment how would something like this be divided up? Would parts like the magazine and scope be separate meshes with their own materials or should I try to fit it all into one UV space as a single mesh?

Kanni3d

Material wise, you can break up the gun into a couple of materials (one for polymers/plastics, one for metals is a nice common way), but most of the time the weapon itself is one materia. This also includes the magazine (since both are always being called/on screen), but it can be split and seperated. Any sort of attachments or auxiliary pieces would almost always be a separate material (since they would not always be on screen, only situational).

Breaking things up mesh wise, its usually just whatever would be movable/interactive/animated. Everything would be one mesh, but not welded/contiguous. The animator (or keen modelers) would rig the mesh by its elements, and commonly it'd just be the trigger, magazine, mag release, bolt assembly, charging handle, bolt release, and maybe the stock adjustment. 

radiancef0rge

i feel like maybe 3 materials.  one for the scope, 2 for the rest.  probably 1024 for the scope and 2x 2048s for the rest of the model. 

NURBS

Three? So the scope, the gun itself and what else? The magazine?

radiancef0rge

i was thinking 2 for the gun if you couldnt maintain texel density with one.  but yeah, another option would be to throw swappable parts onto their own material - like the magazine, yeah.  

NURBS

Ok, I think I understand now. Thanks for the replies!