Hello, after over 16 years working with Call of Duty (over 30 years of FPS) I am making a new game in Unreal Engine 5.
Since Quake days all Weapons have 2 models, one very detailed which is the one that is loaded to clients in the first person view, and another with a very lower quality, which is loaded as the “World Model” from that weapon.
So when you are playing, only your own weapons are loaded just to yourself with highest quality, and what you see with all other players are not their higher resolution versions, the same when a weapon drops on the ground. You will only load the hi-def weapon when you actually pickup that weapon and is in your own hands.
This is how works in every Quake based game since the beginning, and what I remember was like that also in earlier days of Unreal.
Of course, I’m not talking about LOD here, the World Model have their own LOD, when the hi-def weapon that you are carrying doesn’t have LOD, because only you can actually see it.
I’m studying Unreal 5 for over a year now and didn’t found any info about there, is not used anymore? Is auto generated or something? Or no ones cares anymore for the performance and LOD/Nanite will do a better job than double the number of models?
When I ask to the Weapons’ artists about World Model for their weapons they don’t have any idea of what I’m talking about it.
Anyone with AAA experience in a FPS could share your thoughts about the World Models for Weapons in Unreal 5? Is it still worth making them or is not used anymore?
If not used anymore would be great to know the reason(s). Unreal can deal very well with hi-def weapons in the world and will not worth it create world models? Or people are just lazy and don’t care much about performance anymore, so the players that need to get more powerfull VGAs?
Any thoughts?
Cheers