To normal map, or not to normal map grass/foliage/trees

BARDLER

Sometimes I see people use normal maps on grass/foliage/tree cards, and sometimes I don't. I have seen some people say that you shouldn't use normals on them, but have not seen a reason why they say this.

Can someone elaborate or clear this up for me. Thanks guys.

L1151502

I would have thought it largelly depends on you'r time limit. If you have the time then go ahead but if there are other assets that the player will be more interested in looking at then they will need attention first. Also it will possibly depend on the tri limit. if the tree looks very basic then a normal map may help but if you can pull of the detail without a normal map then problem solved.

this is only my opinion though

poopipe

personally speaking

i think normal maps work best if you don't go too small. eg. if you're doing hair you don't feature each strand in the normal, you feature clumps

its the same with foliage - feature the basic shape of each clump but not the fiddly detail


it depends what scale you're working on - im making ivy at the moment so I've built a clump of ivy with each leaf modelled as a simple shaped plane and am projecting normals from that onto alpha'd planes for the low poly version.

it reacts really well to lighting and doesn't come out noisy