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3D & Animation Any tutorials for modding in 3ds max an MG 42?

The Uberpoly is used for normals.
Using various optimizers on a highpoly usually doesn't result in good lowpoly models. Decimation will only go so far before it starts to destroy features.
Projection mapping the UV material onto the low poly isn't always very nice either. Unless it already has a unique UV.
Typically the lowpoly will have a smaller texture size anyways, and much of the UV space is wasted on detail polys the highpoly has, but the low poly doesn't. Like the barrel of a M2HB, you'll see the barrel inside the heat shield on a high poly, it will be solid on a low poly and just texture mapped.
 
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Well, the luger has 3 models:

1. Uberpoly, used for generating normal maps for the high poly and low poly modelss. I would never UV map the Uberpoly, its only function is to bake normals. The insane polycount will never make it into a game, and be as insane to unwrap.

2. Highpoly, 1st person with extra details. Gets UV mapped and it's own Diffuse, specular and normal map 2048 x 2048. Takes some effort to unwrap and fit into a single texture space.

3. Lowpoly, 3rd person with less details and more jagged. Inside the magazine and individual bullets have been axed, plus little stuff like fillets and chamfers are gone, and curves represented with fewer facets. Unique UV maps at 1024 x 1024, diffuse, specular and normal. In this case, I was able to bake the highpoly UV map onto the lowpoly map, with minor fiddling of the resulting texture.
 
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Uberpoly? i am reading this word for the first time in my life.

Highpoly is not 1st person, its high poly. If you would try to add high poly into the game, it would probably crash the game because the polycount of highpoly model goes at least to 100 000, more often to millions. Regularry 1st weapon model has 1k-10k polygons. Anything used in the actual game is a lowpoly model, doesnt matter if its 1st or 3rd. 3rd just uses lower detailation, often there are several 3rd meshes with different LODs, like lod1 lod2, etc. Mg34 for example, has 4-6 LODs for 3rd person.
Also i never understood why people even make different UVW map with different diff/spec/norm maps for 3rd meshes, it adds literally nothing, except for more work (retexturing/rebaking everything for 2nd time) and more memory use (using 2 textures instead of 1), and the second thing is kinda critical for ro2 modding for known reason.
 
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Different shades of grey really. That's why I added "Uber" to the scale.

Have had to adjust what I considered high and low over the years. High is okay for HUD rendered objects, but not in game. Only lowpoly stuff is in game (3d person), with progressively lower polycounts for LODs.

In a few years the scale will shift again. Soon "Uber" will be the only meshes used. Today's high is tomorrows low, so they say.
 
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i dont think that such models in games as guns will get polycount anyhow close to highpoly models used for rendering (like 100 000), not because it will be too much for computers (though this is a reason too), but because its basically impractical and useless. If you are not leaving too much useless edges in your model (that increase polycount without any useful effect on the model form), you can get form, very close to ideal (edges are hardly seen in game), without reaching, lets say, 20k, for most of cases. All other things, like markings, scratches or not smooth surface, can be easilly done by normal map, that wont eat as much as ridiculous polycount. The problem is that today most of models in games are very poorly optimized, they contain a lot of useless edges that increase polycount but do not make model look better. In that case polycount is basically not representing the actual level of detailation.
 
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