UV mapping small details and pixel density

Development Asset Creation
,
1

Hello,

I have a question regarding pixel density and small mesh details.

To get an idea of the kind of details please have a look at the attachment.
Imagine a truck with a small toolbox, that contains details like this small latch.

We would like to keep these geometric details,
because in our game you can drive these vehicles in third person and you can zoom in and look at all these details.
We want the player to see all the effort we put into these models.

The texture resolution is 4K on the vehicles, however these small details take only 2 pixels on the final texture.
One idea was to put all these details into one corner of the UV map and blur that part in photoshop before we import it into the engine.
So we have only 1 color per triangle.

Do you UV map such details with a higher pixel density?
Do you add another texture just for these small details?

I am really thankful for any advice.

Regards,

2

You could either make them larger on the UV map relative to anything else, or you could split up the UVs onto different maps. I think that would be reasonable, given how much detail you have.

3

Mirror and reuse parts of the texture where possible.
Split up the model into multiple textures, especially if you want to reuse things like the crates/lights/props on multiple vehicles or outside of vehicles.
Use tiling/detail textures on areas of the vehicle that doesn’t need as much detail, like areas that are simply painted with no sharp details.

4

Do you use that model ingame, or do you low poly baking?