How do you make normal map for belt, buckles, ... ?

DZ_23

Hi all!

I want to know your personal experience for making normal map for belt, buckles, leg holster straps and so on.

Actually I am working on character with some military belts, gun holster, cartridge belt, some buckles on those and so on. For example I want to know should I assume the straps of the leg holster part of the pants and then make the normal map, or I should separate them and make separate normal map for them. I want a good result of the details on those, specially the buckle on that.

So do you separate the buckles and make a normal map for them separately? Or do you assume them just part of the cloth and then make the normal map?

I am appreciate any help, guide and feedback.

Thank you

AtticusMars

You can do it either way, really just depends on your needs. 

Unless the item is replaceable (ie: you can unequip it) I would probably just make them all a single object. Making them separate objects is fine, but you may end up with penetrating meshes during animation if you aren't careful with how you lay out your geometry, this is especially true for any thin straps that need to rest on the surface of a mesh.

If you need to reuse a repeating texture for something like a belt, or you want to lay it out straight for the sake of making texturing easier, then you can always just break that part off into its own UV island, you don't necessarily need to make it a separate object for that.

DZ_23

Thank you. I got the idea.

thomasp

unless it's supposed to be quite optimized to be lowpoly and not really to be seen up close i would do them as separate objects with a little offset to the body mesh. cleaner result and more flexible to work with.

as far as deformation is concerned it's the choice between having them intersect or distort as part of the body skinning.