I think this is good advice. Definitely try to cut corners as much as you can. Personally, I find it easier to draw out the texture first, then move the UV's, instead of snapshotting something and trying to draw in it. Doing the texture first might help you see where you can overlap UVs. Especially the windows. You don't…
@Leisure, You can do alpha in the alpha channel, or another texture pass. But one tex is easiest, PNG is a good way to go and just give the sphere uv area a grey color (darker is more transparent) and everything solid white). For a good glow you need an illum stage. Basically another texture with your alpha channel would…
Snader, thanks for your reply! I am still figuring out which textures/shader can be used for Android (with Unity). But let me ask you, what do you mean by "you could do away with the chamfers"?
Not trying to give you a hard time, but if you want you can triangulate circles like that in the shape of a fan and save one triangle. It's magic! Nice texture btw, maybe could use some sharper detail/contrast here and there.