Realistic 3D weapons
Weapon art
outsourcing
for games
Firearms, melee, attachments and skins for the first-person camera, where every screw and every scratch sits inches from the player’s eye. We work from real references and factory drawings: correct mechanics, clean bakes, honest PBR materials.
02The discipline
What we take on
From a sidearm to a launcher.
Real ones from references and factory drawings: slide, safety and magazine where they belong. Fictional ones get mechanics that would actually work.
A knife gets the same attention as the primary.
Knives, bayonets and improvised weapons go through the same pipeline as the guns, down to the bake and the sign-off in your build.
One set of attachments covers the whole family.
Sights, lasers, suppressors, built once on shared mounting points. An attachment costs less than a new gun, so the same budget buys more content.
One mesh, a whole line of variants.
Skins go onto guns you already ship without touching the model, so nothing breaks. We group them into event collections, timed to your monetisation calendar.
A weak spot in the arsenal is the first thing players notice. Weapons are the most closely examined content in a shooter: the player stares at them for the whole game. So all four categories follow the same route and pass the same checklist.
03External development
Why external production
You don’t need another team to manage.
We understand that, and we build our process to be useful without adding to your workload. Game weapons are made as a set: the gun, its attachments, its skins and event variants. The volume arrives in waves, at release and with every update, and staffing up for the peaks doesn’t pay off. We can take the whole set, from drawings to sign-off in your build. You set the brief and make the calls at agreed checkpoints. Breaking the work down, assigning it, internal art review and keeping to the schedule are our job. That’s what you pay an external team for: not the ability to send a model, but taking the production load off your in-house team.
Start small. Most partnerships open with a paid pilot, sometimes as small as one model. It tests the whole chain, from contract to delivery to payment. If it doesn’t click, we stop there: you pay only for the days worked, and the source files are yours.
04Team and review
How we work inside your team
Your rules stay your rules. Our process adapts to them.
We can bring experience and research while the requirements are still taking shape. But where the pipeline, the style guide and the decisions already exist, we don’t swap them for our own idea of what’s right.
- 01The team comes complete
Weapon artists, an art lead and a manager come as one team, so the model, its attachments and its skins are made by one crew instead of several vendors.
- 02Review before your sign-off
Every model goes through peer review, an art lead check and our automated QC gate before it reaches you. What you see has already been checked through the first-person camera.
- 03Advice on request
If a decision is already made, such as the tier scheme or the attachment budget, we follow it to the letter. If it’s still open, we lay out the trade-offs and recommend a route: a real gun or a fictional one based on it, one shared mesh for every skin or separate geometry variants, how many LODs.
- 04Research and our own tools
Before work starts, we study the construction from factory drawings and photos: how the parts connect and move, what they are made of and where they wear. We also work out the production side: which pipeline suits your game and the shortest route to the result. That takes experience and a trained eye. Baking, naming checks and QC run through our own tools, with no extra line on the invoice.
- 05NDA and access
NDAs at two levels: the studio and each artist. Where you have your own infrastructure, we work inside it: your Perforce, your VPN. No subcontracting. Nothing goes into our portfolio without written permission.
- 06One point of contact
A manager and an art lead run the work on our side, and every question goes through one named contact. Dailies, not status meetings: once a day, everything in progress lands on one render sheet.
05Pipeline
Six stages, six sign-offs
- 01Brief and references
We go through the list, your existing arsenal and the style guide, and gather references and factory drawings for each item. Then we come back with an estimate. Sign-off: scope and estimate.
- 02Blockout
Size and proportions, blocked out for the first-person camera. We check the silhouette in the character’s hands, the way the player will see it. Sign-off: silhouette and proportions.
- 03High-poly
The construction is worked out from drawings and the detail is built for the bake: at first-person distance every bevel shows. Sign-off: mechanics and detail.
- 04Low-poly and bake
Tiers for first and third person: one silhouette, different budgets. LODs are built in the same pass. UVs laid out to your texel density, maps baked from the high-poly. Sign-off: triangle budget, LODs and UVs.
- 05Materials
PBR on your master materials. Stamps, wear and scratches from references: the player notices everything. Sign-off: texture sets and wear.
- 06In-engine check
Import, collision, animation pivots, LODs. The model is checked in the build, under your lighting. Sign-off: the finished asset in your scene.
06Delivered to your requirements
Drops into the build, no rework
Engines. UE5, Unity or your own. We hand over the assets, or assemble and check them right in your build.
Triangle budgets. Tiers for first and third person are fixed before work starts, so at sign-off there is nothing left to argue about.
Texel density. Matched to your existing assets, so a new model doesn’t stand out among those already in the game.
Naming and pivots. To your rules, with a correct hierarchy and a pivot on every moving part.
Source files. High-poly, low-poly, bakes and texture sets. All of it is yours.
LODs and collision. Built and checked in your engine, delivered with the asset.
07Two ways to work
A batch of assets or the whole discipline
A batch of assets
- We lock in
- The batch, say several guns with attachments or a skin collection for an event, and the day rate. You get a stage-by-stage estimate, billed as time and materials.
- We deliver
- Stage by stage. You sign off each one before the next starts, and the final sign-off happens in your build. Invoiced at month end.
- We scale
- The next batch: new models, or skins for guns we’ve already delivered.
The whole discipline
- We lock in
- A dedicated weapon team on a monthly retainer. Same people, same rate, so you know the invoice in advance.
- We deliver
- At your project’s pace, for releases and updates, with sign-off at agreed checkpoints.
- We scale
- We add people as the volume grows. The core team stays.
08What we need for an estimate
Four things
How many items and in which categories: firearms, melee, attachments, skins.
Drawings, photos or weapons already in the game.
Engine, first- and third-person budgets, texel density, naming.
When you need the result.
Missing something? Send what you have. No list yet? We’ll get on a call and build one together.
09Before you write
Quick answers
Eight questions people ask before the first email. Don’t see yours? Write to us and we’ll answer by email.
What does weapon art outsourcing include?
Firearms, melee, attachments and optics, skins and variants. Mechanics from real references and factory drawings, tiers for first and third person, PBR materials, LODs and collision. Delivered into Unreal Engine 5, Unity or your engine, source files included.
What does it cost?
We bill by the day, at the agreed rate. The day count depends on the number of items, the moving parts and attachments per model, the number of tiers and the optimisation requirements. Skins and attachments go onto a finished model, so its geometry isn’t rebuilt. Send the list and we’ll return a stage-by-stage estimate with the rate. On a retainer, the monthly invoice is fixed in advance.
How long does it take?
We give you a timeline with the estimate, broken down by stage: blockout in first-person hands, high-poly with mechanics, low-poly with LODs, UVs and bake, materials, the in-engine check. How many items we can run in parallel depends on who’s free, and we’ll tell you that with the estimate.
What if the quality isn’t right?
Anything off gets caught at the next sign-off, and there are six, from scope to the model in your build. At worst, one stage of one model is redone. Work you’ve already signed off isn’t touched.
We already have an arsenal. Can you match it?
We work to your style guide and master materials, and check a new model next to the ones already in the game. The fit shows on the very first asset, before a batch is ordered.
Who sets the technical budgets?
You do: triangles per tier, the number of materials, texture resolution, the LOD scheme. If there are no requirements yet, we propose ours for your camera and platform and agree them before work starts, so they don’t change along the way.
Do we get the source files?
Yes, all of it is yours: high-poly, low-poly, bakes, texture sets. Portfolio use and in-game credits are a separate clause in the contract, agreed before work starts.
How fast do we get an estimate?
Within 48 hours of getting the list, along with a straight answer on capacity: who on the team is free.
Send the list and we’ll come back with an estimate
A list is enough: how many firearms, knives and attachments. If you have drawings, a style guide and dates, attach them and the estimate gets more precise.
Or just email contacts@mutaform.com. We read everything.