Low Poly UV mapping
 

A question for all the Low Poly uv mappers out there

Im doing a low poly gun (probably for use in Quake 3 game) and im stuck as to which way to do the uv layout. I am only talking about one part of the model (its the highlighted main body in the last picture below), but its the sme principle for the layout of the rest of the gun.

http://www.stonks.com/temp/junk/10.jpg http://www.stonks.com/temp/junk/12.jpg

I started off laying out the UV's as shown below trying to keep the seams as few as possible. (see below)

http://www.stonks.com/temp/junk/uv_old.jpg

But when I put a checker shader on the faces to see the layout, it looked ok in places and twisted in others. I then redid the layout so the checker shader wasnt distorted, but now I have got more seams on the gun to think about when Im doing the texture painting in Photoshop. (see below)

http://www.stonks.com/temp/junk/gun_uv.jpg

The question is.... which is the best way to do it ? More seams and less distortion, or less seams and more distortion ? It would be interesting to read your thoughts..

seams or no seams doesn't really matter, does it? as long as you can tell where faces meet up, you can paint them. i'd say go for two profiles of each side of the gun, and for the middle, either make every face a uniform pattern or flat color, or if you want detail planar map each individual face, so you don't get distortion.