how next gen weapons made?

[chrismaddox3d]

Im trying to work on my portfolio and want to add some weapons. Though its been a while since i modeled any. Do current games still delete back faces in 1st person and do they still make 2nd low res models for enemy guns? Thanks,Chris

[ShadyD]

I don't have any experience in the industry standards or anything but, as far as I know, The only thing that changed is the amount of poly's and the maps that you can use (Normal, Spec etc)

[Kalango]

i also dont have any experience...but i assume today everything its the same, since the advent of fps camera atached to one models head(so you can see your feet when you look down...just like real world), i think weapons became pretty much the same thing, since todays engines suport nice amounts of polies, the 3rd person view model should work for 1st person and vice-versa...its all good anyway...

[TheWinterLord]

Ok lets take Unreal Tournament 3 with first person weapons all around 10k tris, they deleted faces not showing in the viewport (the ones on the back)

the 3rd person models are on 3k tris if i remember correctly.

in some games you dont want to delete faces on the 1st person view weapons if you are ever going to see them. (which you do in some games but not UT3)

Hope this helps.

[Marcus Dublin]

Personally for portfolio purposes I would just concentrate one making a kick ass weapon without deleting any faces. This way you can show the model off from multiple angles so that the viewer can appreciate all of the details. Of course If you ever get the urge to import it into Unreal you could then optimize what you don’t see, this way you can have an in game engine shot as well as software renders.:)

[chai]

I'll second what Marcus said - even if you make a gun for an actual game, make the 1st person one complete, you'd use mirroring for the other side anyway (overlapping uv's which use the same texture space), and only after it's animated I'd suggest to delete the backfaces.

Different games have different requirements for lod's, some use a variety some don't use any.

I can say one more thing about nextgen weapons, they take longer to produce then they used to, and use a lot more budget (especially fps guns, as they take half the screen, and the player stares on them all day long)

[JacqueChoi]

I wasn't able to find it on the net anywhere, but if you could somehow get ahold of Pete Hayes UE3 Modelling Seminar PPT from GDC 06', I'm sure it would be a lot of help.