3D modelling and texture approach for MMO

Unity Engine
1

Hello everyone!

I have a few questions regarding how 3D Modelling should be approached for a Sci-Fi MMO setting ( variety of ships and structures ).
We’ve started the 3d process for the most part using one object and molding those, and stuffing the faces onto a UV map, some of our models have multiple objects so multiple UV maps.

I was later told that this method will kill the game by overloading the texture memory, that I should rebuild the entire database with ships with modules ( breaking them down into pieces that can be reused elsewhere in a creative way ). With this in mind, I would like to ask a few questions regarding this subject.

  1. how do you approach making baselines of how many vertices, how large textures should be, and other aspects that need to be considered so we can scale up those hard caps for larger ships that need more detailed surfaces? ( For curvy ships, we’ll have to take a hit on the verts for sure ) or if this is the wrong approach, how do you guys usually gauge what is ‘acceptable’ or standard ? ( We use mostly 1024 and some 2048 map sizes for our models )

  2. If modular and creative re-use of assets is the way to go, and the aim of the game is average graphics, nothing HD on release, what would you say would be the proper break down of ships ( Example, hulls, thrusters, armaments, other greeble that can be re-used ), as well as vert counts to aim for for small, medium, large, massive, and extreme sized ships ( 6Bu, 25Bu,30-40BU, 100-200Bu, 530Bu )

I was given examples like Homeworld I using 150 verts for their fighters, and alot of their assets were re-used across the board. Thanks in advance!

2

Is this intended to be desktop or device.

Also, while you are creating an MMO, this is the wrong place to be asking these sorts of questions, as the graphics have nothing to do with networking.

3

Thanks for your response!, Didn’t realize I posted it in the wrong section sorry!

To answer your question, we’re aiming at PC release as a main, and porting them to mobiles in the future.

4

Its alright, because in retrospect, Im not sure which section would best suit a question like this.

If you are targeting pc, I dont think you have much to worry about with texture memory. Sure you don’t want to be ridiculous with it, but I doubt you will have so many that the whole thing will fall apart as you’ve been told.

You also have a lot more freedom in how many verts you can pump out on a pc.

The important question is how many players will be in one area of the game, because that will determine your budgets… 1000’s of ships? go for very low (150 - 500), 10’s of ships, you could go as high as you like (within reason) (2000-10000)

I would ignore the device side, especially if you are intending to create an MMO.