Yep. I have gotten some feedback on the facebook 10k group and they pretty much said the same things. Yes the box loop and UV tile is the game cheaper way. And the way I am currently working on it is expensive, but it looks nicer. I think I am going to go with the 216tri version. Thanks for the feed back.
I don't have a good answer to your question about the treads but I'd be interested in knowing what people who have done tanks for games like Call of Duty or Battlefield would say. In Warthunder I think they use a tiling texture on a simple "box loop" for some tanks but a more detailed version for others. I don't think they…
To be honest....you can easily do both and swap them out depending on the purpose. Have the individual link UVs on one of your other texture atlases, (as it doesn't take up much space so can easily be squeezed in somewhere) and then the tiling texture approach is on a separate atlas anyway. I would recommend, even for the…