Normal Map or Not?
polycounter lvl 7
Hey polycount. My instructor says that pretty much every model ever should have a normal map these days, and while I usually agree with him I just really vehemently feel that this model doesn't need one, that it just feels like something gimmicky tacked on top it is simply because the map slot is available.
I'm not 100% done the texture and the model itself is only 400 tris. What do you guys think I should do with it/where I should take it next? The texture itself is only one 256x265, so I'm not even sure if a normal could look that good on it.
I'm not 100% done the texture and the model itself is only 400 tris. What do you guys think I should do with it/where I should take it next? The texture itself is only one 256x265, so I'm not even sure if a normal could look that good on it.
Replies
personally my problem is the mirroring you have going on
And I tried quickly making a normal out of the texture with xnormal and it came out looking like a terribly muddy mess. I really don't get why he wants one.
EDIT: Here's the current texture to show why there is so much mirroring. Still working on the rocks since they are mostly random with no uniform lighting or anything.
Update, changed a lot and added shadow, I think it really adds a lot to it. If anyone can think of anything else to change/critique that'd be great.
EDIT: Texture as it is now, with smaller eyes.
Maybe the mouth could go a little smaller its only that you wont see this nearly as close as as its shown there so without large, exaggerated details they'll just end up as a single pixel on your screen.
I'm not sure what you mean by hard poly limit compared to a regular poly limit but it is supposed to stay as low poly as we can manage with one 256x256, which right now my model is 412 tris.
Right now I am mainly interested in what I can change visually rather then the technical aspects of how the UVs could be different since that would entail relaying out all my UVS and starting the texture over from scratch. I know if I had more geometry I could have had nearly all the wooden beams on a single map, or have a single tiling brick and plaster(?) texture, but that would send my polycount too high, and depending on how and where it tiled, the shadows would not fit as well.
He's on to something though, when I was job hunting I was only applying to places that I thought didn't require normal maps but every one of them did.
As far as the current texture goes, try shading with something other than black and white. The red rooftiles for instance, try painting in the highlights as orange, rather than pink. And see about adding some ambient colour to tie things together and give it some more colour identity.
One neat trick to quickly do a mockup of that is to add an overlay layer, fill it with the colour you want and then double-click it (or go to blending options). Once in the blending options dialog, limit it to the shadows (In the bottom b/w gradient, drag the right-most handle to the left untill only the shadows are affected, the alt-drag the handle to break it into two and set the falloff)
I wish I knew diddly, I heard he's a fantastic cook.
Frankly, putting normal maps on this asset seems pretty ridiculous.