UE5 project low poly asssets

Frigus · Jan 2 2026

Hi Polycount! We (3 friends) have started a project for an open-world single-player survival game for Android/iOS, and I'm working on the 3D assets. Any advice/comments would be really helpful. I'll update the thread weekly.

Burning Barrel :
512*512 Base Color
256*256 Roughness/Metallic Texture
512*512 Emissive map
537 vertex

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ec/wh0reizuxqre.jpg

Computer Set
Keyboard 844 vertex
Mouse 155 vertex
Screen 144 vertex
Case 8 Vertex
512*512 Base Color
256*256 Roughness/Metallic Texture

Retro Fridge
422 Vertex
512*512 Base Color
256*256 Roughness/Metallic Texture

Eric Chadwick · Jan 2 2026

The barrel also seems to use an emissive texture (not listed)? If so, I would suggest baking some reddish-orange emissive lighting onto the inner barrel. And the burning ends of the wood planks should have an appropriate wood effect, not simply reusing the charcoal emissive.

The rust & damage on the fridge seem randomly placed, rather than consistent with patterns of usage. Environment items should ideally tell a story, about how they got that way. Every prop and locale has the chance to provide their part for an overall visual narrative.

Frigus · Jan 2 2026

Eric Chadwick said:

The barrel also seems to use an emissive texture (not listed)? If so, I would suggest baking some reddish-orange emissive lighting onto the inner barrel. And the burning ends of the wood planks should have an appropriate wood effect, not simply reusing the charcoal emissive.

The rust & damage on the fridge seem randomly placed, rather than consistent with patterns of usage. Environment items should ideally tell a story, about how they got that way. Every prop and locale has the chance to provide their part for an overall visual narrative.

Yes the burning barrel has an emissive map, I forgot to mention emissive map, so I edited the first post. I'll also revise my emission map and the retro fridge texture. Thanks for your suggestions. I'll update the post as soon as possible.

Frigus · Jan 2 2026

The burning barrel emissive map has been updated. I'm currently working on the refrigerator texture. It will take some time to finalize.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/xv/mjvi2ssoc4dc.png

Eric Chadwick · Jan 2 2026

Great! However I think you need an emissive texture that matches the wood. Wood planks have a specific shape when they burn.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_125894867_fire-flame-and-burning-wood-for-the-grill.html

Frigus · Jan 3 2026

Hi Eric, I've updated the burning barrel model. I've slightly altered the wood shapes, but not too much, and I've created a new fire pit model with these woods.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/5w/1a2xdgn3zpdf.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/v6/ljhhkq52vzpo.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ng/u30ipq3ipn90.png

Frigus · Jan 12 2026

Update : Retro fridge old model updated.

Double bed 01 added

325 vertex
512*512 Base Color
256*256 Roughness/Metallic Texture

Frigus · Mar 7 2026

Station cover : 796 vertex
Material :
1024x1024 trimsheet base color and roughness metallic texture.
512x512 bottom concrete material

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ir/baf12xceu1l9.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/wk/kc1ti95dt1po.png

fuel dispenser : 2160 vertex (lod0) 1097 vertex (lod2)
Material : 512x512 base color 512x512 roughness metallic map.

Frigus · Mar 9 2026

Wooden Military Crate : 804 vertex
material 512x512 Base color 256x256 roughness metallic map

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/by/n5ipp3p7o3da.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/br/i7d1hafxv0mm.png

Frigus · Mar 12 2026

Military Black Box : 900 vertex
material 512x512 Base color 256x256 roughness metallic map

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/6j/n5e4a6fgxiwg.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ss/2fwcib49muah.png

Eric Chadwick · Mar 13 2026

What does a texture sheet and UVs look like for these assets? Curious how much UV reuse.

And what about the bottom? Are these going to be rigged with physics, and thus tumble-able in-game? The bottom could conceivably use lower texel density, or reuse the same texture as the top, etc.

Also, are you baking an ambient occlusion texture for these? Typically you would pack it into an occlusion-rough-metallic R-G-B texture. I think AO is way underused in PBR, but it really is essential for a good solid PBR texture set, at least when used in your typical real-time renderer (aka rasterizer). For example, without vs. with AO:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/e4/xakpl6h5ta3s.jpg

https://www.khronos.org/gltf/pbr/#pbr-glossary

Frigus · Mar 13 2026

Eric Chadwick said:

What does a texture sheet and UVs look like for these assets? Curious how much UV reuse.

And what about the bottom? Are these going to be rigged with physics, and thus tumble-able in-game? The bottom could conceivably use lower texel density, or reuse the same texture as the top, etc.

Also, are you baking an ambient occlusion texture for these? Typically you would pack it into an occlusion-rough-metallic R-G-B texture. I think AO is way underused in PBR, but it really is essential for a good solid PBR texture set, at least when used in your typical real-time renderer (aka rasterizer). For example, without vs. with AO:

https://www.khronos.org/gltf/pbr/#pbr-glossary

Hi Eric, here's my process for creating textures for the wooden crate: First, I delete the back of the object, then I import it into Substance Painter. Once I'm done in Painter, I copy the textured faces to other surfaces. I adjust the UVWs later, here are some screenshots.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/n1/zhd3sdp1ralc.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/oo/6h8pxy7j5kxf.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/tb/9dz3ggfyhmt4.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/vc/bvcbg89w5dam.jpg

https://www.khronos.org/gltf/pbr/#pbr-glossary This example looks really great! My packaged texture has ambient occlusion, but I didn't bind it to the material, and I wasn't using any ambient occlusion texture in the game engine. I didn't think it would have this much of an impact.

here is my basic material setup :

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fc/11xt590hb0z2.jpg

Eric Chadwick · Mar 13 2026

Nice job on the UV reuse.

However it looks like you're painting shading information into the BaseColor texture. This is generally bad practice in a PBR material.

This may be necessary, if your lighting setup is really primitive. If you're intending to use PBR lighting, then it's better to not paint shading there, but to use the AO for that instead.

The red channel is sitting there unused in your metallic-rough texture anyway.

Frigus · Mar 13 2026

Yes, the lighting is a bit primitive. I'm only using 1 movable light due to forward shading; the other lights are static, and the light map size of the objects is limited to the 32x32-512x512 range. My assets didn't look good before I multiplied the Ao to Basecolor

Eric Chadwick · Mar 13 2026

Ah yeah AO is only affected by image based lighting (usually using a diffusely-convolved cube map and/or spherical harmonics). Can you add an IBL? Would really help to simulate nice bounce lighting. As it is, your shadows are all very very black.

Frigus · Mar 13 2026

Eric Chadwick said:

Ah yeah AO is only affected by image based lighting (usually using a diffusely-convolved cube map and/or spherical harmonics). Can you add an IBL? Would really help to simulate nice bounce lighting. As it is, your shadows are all very very black.

I will try that and post it here as soon as possible.

Frigus · Mar 13 2026

No Ao on BC

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/on/qvk0nun5kz84.png

With AO on BC

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ti/742346t4xix0.png

Eric Chadwick · Mar 13 2026

Nice. It seems like it might be missing from some of the corners though. What do the BaseColor and AO look like on their own? For example (render / basecolor / occlusion):

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ka/l0yerm7m6kp7.jpg

Frigus · Mar 25 2026

I’ve completed the modular tunnel pipe set.
It uses two materials:
A tileable, vertex-painted concrete material for the tunnel walls and floors (512×512 textures).
A trim sheet material for the train rails, lights, pipes, cables, and other metal elements (1024×1024 texture).

The vertex count is slightly high:

T-pipe: 23,567 tris / 14,493 vertices
Straight pipe: 14,373 tris / 8,863 vertices
L-pipe: 21,744 tris / 13,010 vertices

UE5 project low poly asssets

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