Newbie's question about normal map

Xena

I'm going to model my first motorcycle and plan to use normal maps. Here are my questions:

1. what kind of low poly mesh is good for normal map? Can I have triangles? I think once I go for higher polys, triangles might have issues for smoothing and subdivide.
2. once I generate the normal map, what kind of layer I should use it as? multiply? overlay? Because I still want to texture it.

Mark Dygert

4 sided polys or quads work best if you plan on subdividing the mesh like you mentioned. It would be kind of bazaar to take something so inorganic into a sculpting program. Since triangles don't let you control loops as easy I would say work in quads/4 sided ploys when you can.

You don't really apply the normal map to your texture. You put it in the bump slot of your material inside the 3D app you are working in. You would use another kind of map normally called a diffuse map, to color your object. If you want to paint details into the normal map check out Ben Mathis's tutorial on doing just that.
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow_3.htm

Just make sure not to confuse your color map with your normal map

Xena

Thanks,vig. You are always very helpful. Right now my demo reel is using playplast to show Unlit game models ( Becuase rendering gave me weird chunky shadows on low poly). So I shall render normal mapped models instead?

I'm just going to do a higher poly in Maya instead of Zbrush since it is not an organic model. I am thinking starting with all quads and eventually reduce the initial quad low-poly to quads, triangle combined.