Normal Map or Not?

madmuffin

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.

ricolas71

You don't need a normal map for this house. It's obviously lowpoly like for a DS or Iphone game and anyway you will never have a decent result with NM in a 256 texture for a whole building

se7ered

looks cool the way it is and the style doesn't really call for it in my opinion....but if that's what is being asked of you then do it and see what you come up with...couldn't hurt...... . . . unless it sucks

personally my problem is the mirroring you have going on

madmuffin

I've only got 256x256 to work with so to get any level of detail there had to be a lot of mirroring. You'll never see it as close up as I am here regardless.

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.

madmuffin

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.

chrisradsby

The sign takes up quite a lot of texture-space compared to the rest of the sheet, and it's only used once. It feels like you somehow could make the wooden-bars stand out more. I'm not really that good at handpainted stuff. I think it looks nice, depending on the style I guess the roof looks a bit too saturated. Good work, you've done a lot with so little.

ZacD

you could also mirror the PC logo, and it looks really off (huge eyes).

madmuffin

I could mirror or reduce the UV size on the sign but I don't see the point because I have nothing I could put into that space that I'd made room for. The face was originally only temporary until I put in like a horse head, crossed swords, a flagon of mead or something else appropriate. I'll fix the eyes now though. Maybe it was just really excited?

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.

madmuffin

I never really intended to put a normal map on it, I just wanted to show my teacher they were unnecessary on this model, especially not after I painted in the shadows, thanks for the input though, all valid points.

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.

SHEPEIRO

your instructor knows diddly

Justin Meisse

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

your instructor knows diddly

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.

Michael Knubben

madmuffin: I hope your instructor is useful in other ways, because on this topic he's awfully, awfully wrong.
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)

doeseph

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

your instructor knows diddly

I wish I knew diddly, I heard he's a fantastic cook.

Zack Fowler

If you were making this for an engine that used normal maps it seems like you would not use such low-resolution textures and geometry for something the size of a house. The use of normal maps changes your whole workflow because it affects what kinds of lighting you paint into your textures in advance. It's not something you can treat as a nice extra after doing your painted textures normally.

Frankly, putting normal maps on this asset seems pretty ridiculous.