Texturing job WIP, any suggestions?

[Drengeroth]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forums, so I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post this.
I've started working on texturing an M97 (Trench Gun) and I'd like opinions or criticism on it.
There are still some flaws left from the UV and still having troubles to get that sorted out correctly.
I've added AO, Specular and Normal maps at 2048x2048px. I'm also unsure of what parts to take for images so please tell me if there are any spots that you would like to see or for anything else.

[Jangalomph]

As for proper thread, should probably go under model pimpage. on the other hand, looks rather fantastic,though the wood and metal seems way too clean. Scuff the metal some, and wood seems more like plastic than how wood would really look. If possible fix the seam on the wood on the butt of the gun on the top as it doesn't look right. other than that, I can't give much else as I am no texture artist.

[Drengeroth]

That was a really fast reply, I didn't expect it that fast. But yeah, as I said. The UV map that came along with the model had some issues. One of them being that only one side of the stock has been mapped and used for both sides, so I'll have to edit it so I can get the seam out.

[Jangalomph]

two versions of trench gun. They both seem to be black, so you'd need to edit yours to be that way. According to the photos the wood actually almost looks like these, though the thing is, you should probably normal map it or attempt scuffing as things on models just tend to look better scuffy.

[nub]

I'd rotate the direction of the wood grain in the weapon's stock by 90 degrees so it's "parallel" to the length of the weapon; like in the photos Jangalomph posted. It just looks better that way in my opinion.

[Drengeroth]

ah, I see. Thank you for your help so far. I've changed the rotation of the wood, looks better indeed. Although with the metal I cant really choose if i should keep it like it is now or have it darkened. It already seems pretty dark as it is now.

[nub]

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like there's several spots on the mesh that have smoothing errors, and it's causing the specular to look really weird. It's especially noticeable on heat shield, where all the holes are at, and on the receiver near the ejection port.

It might just be the angle you took the screen caps at, or those UV flaws you mentioned. I'm not really sure.

[Drengeroth]

Ah, about that. To be honest, I dont know what causes that. I was planning to look at that after i finished the texture.
http://gamebanana.com/models/827 I was using this model. The screenshots are from an older version of the model but the download has the heat shield and other parts.