normal map-baking small details separately

mzprox

Sry I couldn't come up with better title and my question is noobish:

So i saw a tutorial some time ago, couldn't find it now, but it was about making a game environment model. In that tutorial small/high poly details (like panels) were not put on the lowpoly model, but vere created separately on a plane and then they were baked into an other plane. The tutorial did not explain how to use/combine this normal map with the final model, the texturing phase.

So my questions:
-is there a name for this technique so I can search for more tips. I would like to see complete tutorials about it.
-Is this kind of workflow a generally good idea?
-If you could recommend me tutorials on the subject i'd be grateful.(I guess it's all about photoshop)

thx.

pablohotsauce

I think OP might be asking about how to model hi-poly detail on a plane that's separate from the main hi-poly model. E.g., say you have a low poly model of a rubber tire, and you also have a hi-poly model of that tire that you're planning on baking normals and ambient occlusion from, BUT for whatever reason you're wary of modeling the finicky tire tread detail into the hi-poly model itself, and instead you want to model it on a flat plane elsewhere in your scene, bake the tread detail from this separate plane, and then LATER combine that baked detail with the baked details from your main hi-poly tire model. Is that right, OP?

I'm just barely learning this stuff myself. I saw it mentioned in point #5 in this section of the polycount wiki's normal map article. ("Planar-projected mesh"?) But don't see much more info on it...

The sections on blending two normal maps together and renormalizing look relevant too.

mzprox

@pableaux
Yes, that's what I meant.
I think the guy who made the tutorial i was refering in #1 has made a library for himself from small detail elements baked individually or at least separately from the main high poly object (which was a complicated environment piece) and then.. well the tutorial did not continue, but I guess the normal maps were combined somehow. I know crazybump or nvidia normal map plugin then can normalize the final normal map.
I'd still like to see this method in action if a tutorial exist and i wonder the benefits or drawbacks and gotchas of this method.