That's a pretty cool idea indeed, and could be a handy compromise. If anything one great side effect of this technique (as a whole) is that changing things down the line later if needed is really easy. I recently had to revamp some of my source textures in order to unify a bunch of assets (completely changing the location…
finished the helmet and imported it into #ue4 #gameart #3dart #gamedev with glass from #SubstanceDesigner pic.twitter.com/USo46sxY3z — sprunghunt (@sprunghunt) November 7, 2015