How to make guns?

I was wondering how to make guns since they look so complex and tiny prims. I suck at tiny prims =\. So I was wondering, how do you guys make them?

A place to start out finding info on making tiny prims would be the stickied thread which happens to be directly above your thread at the time I'm posting this: How To Make Tiny Prims (new) /8/56/191989/1.html .

Thx for replying, but I've already seen that. I'm just wondering how do you guys make them.

that is not a very good question what is it you want to know?
i make a gun with prims, textures and scripts that is the bests answer i can give for your question.
what do you need help with the tiny prims? the shapes of the prims?
textures that look realistic? scripts?

To answer your direct question, the ways to make tiny prims are exactly what are discussed in that sticky. I'm not sure what other magic you think is involved.

As for guns specifically, the last time I made non-sculpted ones was when I did the weapons for the Smokin' Aces game, about a year and a half ago. Most of the prims were normal, but the few that were tiny were done excactly as that sticky says, with cuts, hollows, and dimples.

You can see some closeup screenshots at http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sagunsuo8.png and http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=saguns2wd7.png. 99% of those prims are not tiny, and the guns are 1:1 realistic scale.

At the time, a review of the game called the guns "some of the most realistic Second Life has ever seen". I mention that not to toot my own horn in any way, but just to point out that it's not a terribly involved process to make a gun look pretty good. Those don't even look all that great in my opinion, but they got rave reviews. There were about half a dozen of those weapons in total, all made in under one day. There was no time available for much complexity in the way of texturing. If I were to redo them now, I'd sculpt them, take my time with a really tasteful texture bake, and they'd look 10 times better.

I guess if you are trying to make a realistic gun, one that looks like a particular model of real world gun, one thing you would need to know is what the particular gun looks like, from multiple directions. Gun pictures of one sort or another are readily available, but possibly there's a site with top bottom left right front back style pictures that would be good for modeling from. Anyone know of such a site?

How many parts would a decent SL handgun have? A grip, a trigger, a barrel, a sight, maybe a rotary chamber if it's a cowboy's six shooter. The thing that goes around the trigger.

Good question. I don't know any specific sites by name, really, but as you said, there are tons of them out there. The level of available detail is pretty impressive if you search. If memory serves, I think I probably found a lot of good stuff on the Airsoft website. They specialize in replicas of RL guns. From what I've been told, most prop guns you see in TV and movie shows are Airsoft.

When I did those Smokin' Aces game guns, all I had to go on was a generic list of gun types in the game's design doc. It just said "machine gun", "shotgun", "handgun", etc. Since I know basically nothing about guns, and knew even less at the time, I handed the list to a friend who's a bit of a gun nut, and asked him for make/model recommendations. Then I simply Googled for pictures.

I discovered along the way that making 3D models of guns is actually quite a popular activity among game modders. There seems to be (quite understandably) a culture of pride in the details, judging by the renderings, screenshots, and forum posts I found in my search. I'm sure if one were to talk to any of those people, one would receive more great advice than one would know what to do with.


Depends on the gun, really. There's a lot more artistry that goes into real guns than you might think. Some of them are quite ornate, both mechanically and aesthetically. I think your list covers the foundation pretty well, though.