Looks nice.
I guess I don't have to say this to you, you've been around enough, but let me do it anywayz: remember we need textures, we will have a very hard time finding someone to texture another guy's model. (texturing is always the killer of most contributions).
That said, remember how current texturing works: we need normal maps (preferrably baked with something like xNormal, out of high-res versions of the mesh), we need specmaps with a shininess map in the alpha channel, a damage map, and an AO bake.
Useful links:
Superrealistic texturing
Animated textures
Radiosity baking in blender (though it's tricky to get right)
Graphics requirements
I can't find the entry in the wiki or the forum post about texture packings, which tells how to pack the textures for the shaders. So, I'd be willing to assist in that. In any case, it's best to have the different maps separate on the masters repo, so required textures for are:
- An albedo map (commonly known as diffuse)
- A specularity map (strength of specular reflections)
- A shininess map (surface roughness, white = mirror-like, black = rough, rubber-like)
- A glow/light map (self-lit zones)
- An ambient occlusion map (baked with xNormal or a similar tool)
- A bump map (used to feed bump detail to xNormal)
- A normal map (baked with xNormal out of high-res, detailed meshes)
- A damage map (damaged version of the albedo map)
Since baked maps (normal and ambient occlusion) need non-overlapping UV unwraps, you'll have to be careful with the unwrap. Basically, the only allowed overlapping is mirroring across symmetric features, but the welding point between the mirrors must be mapped very carefully, and it's hard. The easiest way is to completely avoid overlaps.