How Do You Make Game-Ready Weapons? Share Your Workflow

ITZSABO

Hi everyone,

I'm a beginner in the field of creating game-ready weapons, and I know there are many others like me trying to figure out the right and efficient workflow for making weapons suitable for use in engines like Unity or Unreal.

As you know, creating a game-ready asset involves several steps — modeling (High \ Low), UVs, baking, texturing, optimization, export — and each professional has their own approach and tools they’ve come to rely on over time.

So I'm reaching out to ask all experienced artists and developers here:
Please consider sharing your personal workflow — even if it's just a brief overview — so that beginners like me can learn and build a clearer understanding of how to approach this process.

Feel free to share things like:

• The type of weapon(s) you work on

• What kind of games or engines you design them for

• What tools you use (Blender, Substance Painter, ZBrush, etc.)

• A breakdown of your workflow steps (modeling > UV > bake > texture > export)

• Any tips, common mistakes, or resources you recommend

• Optional: Portfolio/artstation links or screenshots

The goal is to exchange knowledge and help more newcomers get started the right way.

Huge thanks in advance to anyone who shares! 🙏

Lamont

Just a quick writeup as I just went through the process myself for the first time. But the workflow is the same as doing any high to low bake:

• Going to Unreal.
• 3DS Max, RizomUV, and Substance Painter (I set up my own export preset).
• Starts out with ref gathering and note taking. Drawovers in Photoshop and deciding what colors to use. Blockout with all functional parts (for rigging) and getting it in game so I can see it in context. Then I make revisions from there on size and where to put details into. After that, I model the high. I do a lot of floaters to save myself time. Then model the low from the high. Then UV map the low and once the UV's are where I want, I move on to rigging/texture work. I make sure that all the parts are named correctly and my render settings in Substance are correct to not include parts that are named different etc. Also I use color ID (not the auto generated one). Following the notes and refs I took first makes the texture process easier. Prep work is not the most glamourous stage, but it helps to be somewhat organized. Then I do the rigging and animations from there. Since it's a weapon with no smooth skinning, it's easy to make revisions to the model.
• My mistake was having to go back and add more things because "I thought it would be cool to see" which meant modeling more parts for animation and rigging.