Quick Low poly question : Through or attached
I'm needing a little help understanding when I need to build a model with multiple parts. IE a door with a handle, Now should the door handle go through the model, making the door easier to modify later and also saving a good handful of triangles. Or make it attached, which might make it harder to change later on, and increase the tris count. The other thing to consider would be that If I was to unwrap it, there would be some waste in the places I have models going through others. Because that area would be black when baking AO etc. I could just have everything unwrapped to a plain seamless texture, but that would mean that I do not get my normals/spec/ao maps. So if you sort of understand what im trying to get at, please tell me your opinion or how you would do it. Thanks in advance!
Replies
You can delete hidden faces, parts that are completely inside others, or never seen for some other reason. Though for lightmapping it's usually best to have watertight models (no holes on bottoms or backs), also that's better for reuse because sometimes you can rotate models to make more variety in a level.
You can also shrink the UVs for hidden faces, and stick them all in an unused part of your texture sheet.
Thanks, I've been debating it for some odd reason, wasn't easy to google and figure out what people prefer to do, so thank you a ton for answering!