What to do with this lamellar armor (retopology and bake)
I've done this armor as part of a personal project and even though it's not gonna end up anywhere other than my portfolio, I wanted to show some retopology skills as well.
This is how I decided to retopologize it
The problem is that with all those hard angles I would have to make a lot of hard edges and seams and it doesn't seem like the best solution, especially if I want to show it as part of the work.
I tried baking it with all soft edges and the normal artifacts are noticeable up close, but maybe after texturing nobody will notice it?
The other option I thought about would be to bevel at least all the frontal faces, so I don't have to split all the UVs. Like this
All options don't seem too great to be honest. Maybe I should cut only the upper part of the plates cause this is where the artifacts are the most noticeable and make the UVs in a series of strips?
How would you go about it?
This is how I decided to retopologize it
The problem is that with all those hard angles I would have to make a lot of hard edges and seams and it doesn't seem like the best solution, especially if I want to show it as part of the work.
I tried baking it with all soft edges and the normal artifacts are noticeable up close, but maybe after texturing nobody will notice it?
The other option I thought about would be to bevel at least all the frontal faces, so I don't have to split all the UVs. Like this
All options don't seem too great to be honest. Maybe I should cut only the upper part of the plates cause this is where the artifacts are the most noticeable and make the UVs in a series of strips?
How would you go about it?
Replies
if you have normal maps then you only need geometry for silhouette, UVs and deformation.
pick a view distance and decide what's needed based on that