^ very nice render indeed! If it's a fairly fast renderer then its worth a look. It appears to have some nice materials inside it too, that example definitely has some sort of SSS going, thanks for the link.
so how to get a rough idea about poly counts for various devices? For example if I want to make a car game, how many polys should the car have for 1) Mobile 2) PC?
Might as well cross post these from the Speed animating thread. Fiirst draft animations from a game project where I am responsible for animations and "lumpdesigns". Bonus example on one of the "popculture lumps" that will be in the game.
There are many tutorials that capture everything you need to get flawless bakes. Understand how a lowpoly works, what transers well into a normal map and check the few clicks you need to know in, for example, xNormal.
Which modeling software do you use? Maya, Max? Try flipping your green channel. When Xnormal bakes a normal map the Y axis needs to be flipped (for example if you use 3dsmax).
You might try layering in some fog sheets to give the scene some depth cues. It would really separate the wall from the house, for example, and the house from the foreground and make the scene look deeper.
I was looking up some unity how-to type stuff a while back and found this: http://unity3d.com/support/resources/example-projects/charactercustomization Might give you some ideas on all the setup in unity.
Looking good ! Just a tip though about the face presentation, the camera focal is not really adapted for face close-ups, it deforms the face quite too much. Here's a little example to illustrate my point.
this is a quick random example. I made the center mesh x-ray to see the intersection a bit better goal is to get one connected mesh where you just have to clean up here and there a bit.
Depends on the renderer, and the version of Max. Usually you need a specific material type for that particular renderer. For example https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3MAX/Light+Emitting+Material+|+VRayLightMtl https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AF3DSUG/Emission