interesting technique for Stylized normal mapping

Lee3dee

Found this great article while reading their other post on vfx animated masks
http://www.alkemi-games.com/a-game-of-tricks-iv-stylized-normal-mapping/

rohMizuno

pretty cool idea, I just feel the workflow is a bit too painful for such a simple thing. maybe the same could be achieved by editing the bake normal on Photoshop or quixel?