more triangles or normal map?
hey guys,
Can someone tell me what the better way of making asset in a modern engine like UE4 is...
Is it better to add like 1000 or 2000 more triangels to an object or is it better to bake a normal map instead of this additional "chamfer" triangles ?
Can someone tell me what the better way of making asset in a modern engine like UE4 is...
Is it better to add like 1000 or 2000 more triangels to an object or is it better to bake a normal map instead of this additional "chamfer" triangles ?
Replies
So make the silhouette look good, increase the amount of polys if you need to, but for surface details, especially if they are on a flat surface, just bake that detail into the normal map.
It is really hard to explain what should be modeled in the lowpoly vs what can be done with a bake and normals, but you will get a feel for it eventually after working on your own stuff, and look at others art.
practically i would always do both, because you probably will always have a normalmap for current gen games, but you will need the chamfers to get better/cleaner vertex shading. if you bevel a hard edge you will have same vert count and same performace as you will avoid vertex splits. plus you will get a cleaner shading with less aliasing.