best way of laying out several model variations?

Bronco

Howdy guys

as you should know by now, im working on these weapons with someone which we hope to release on the net as a pack on turbosquid etc.

However Having done the M16 basic mesh as a single 512x512 texture and the additonal underslug launcher as a 256x256,I now come onto the MP5 which has 4 variations.See below...



note its mainly grips,butts and barrels....with a random scope thrown in for good measure that is different,the rest is exacly the same throughout.

So in essence,how should i go about mapping/texturing these for ease of use for any potential customer.

Thanks for any advise.

John

Eric Chadwick

I would approach it by asking how you expect the customer will want to use them?

Are they for 1st-person POV? Or for pickups in the level? 3rd-person POV character carrying it? Enemies carrying one?

If I were to buy one, I'd want the textures for the gun to be all on one atlas. So I think that presents a problem for you the creator, since they each have different elements.

But if I were to buy them as a set, so my character could switch between the four, I'd want all four to share a single atlas sheet, since that atlas will be loaded in memory all the time, and I don't want to be fetching and clearing different sheets each time I switch weapons.

I think it might depend on how tech-savvy you think your customers might be.

KDR_11k

That second one looks like it could easily be turned into a G3 (larger, straight clip, different rear sights, longer barrel) and give you even more material to sell. Though what I can't see on those renders is whether the rear sight is actually a cylinder or if you modeled it flat. You might want to add the holes in it if your client wants to use iron sights.

Rhinokey

i would texture them all on seperate sheets, just copy and past the shared pieces

KMan

I'd put the common parts of the gun on the top half of the sheet (512x256)And then put the rest of each other variation on the bottom half. That way, for any single weapon you have half of it already textured. Then you can just copy and paste the differences for each piece. That'd be the most optimal, if you were selling this out separatly.

Alternatly, you could tack them all together for a 512x1024 to have them on one sheet. That's probably a bit much though if these are going to be used for 3rd person models.

It all comes down to what's the purpose of it. Maybe you can have it broken down into sets. One set for a first person view, where it's one texture sheet for each variant, so it's a pretty high res, then one where it's for a 3rd person view, and they are all one one sheet, mapped differently.

Go get em bronKO