Diffuse, normal, and specular maps help you create a wide variety of surfaces. diffuse map = base color normal map = surface curvature/detail specular map = intensity/color of the highlight More http://wiki.polycount.net/CategoryTexturing
Diffuse is awesome. The gun looks like matte plastic with shiny plastic for the grip, though. Darken the diffuse if you want, brighten the spec dramatically. Even matte guns have a lot more sheen than that!
I think the normal map in this shot is much bigger than it will be in game. It also makes sense why the diffuse doesn't match, you can bake normals at any resolution, but try authoring Diffuse that high.
how about combining your handpainted diffuse with a normalmap baked from a highpoly following your forms from the diffuse map? you could bring in some exaggerated hard edges, to mach the stylised look.
Your diffuse and material definitions are really letting it down right now. The sculpt is spot on, really is. But that diffuse... That spec... They almost look like flat colours? Also, are you using a gloss map? Colour spec?
Also, you can try to set the ambient colour swatch to black. For some reason even if you have a map assigned to diffuse, and diffuse/ambient are locked, it still takes that ambient swatch into account with alpha.
Thanks man! Working on a character for a side scrolling 2.5D dungeon crawler. He's still in the works, but I wanted to get some WIP's up. Top is with Diffuse, Spec, Gloss, and Normal. Below is Diffuse only.
Thanks Alex, the problem was Diffuse map. has no padding so i just changed background color of my Diffuse map (was black). i also changed the lighting, i think looks better now.
Made a Diffuse-Only unlit Desk Telescope. I'd never done diffuse-only work before, so it was a major learning experience. Any critique is greatly appreciated! Onto the Physically-based version next!
Looks great Tores. Looks like you've put a lot of work into this stuff. My main critique would be that the diffuse textures tend to look a bit blobby. More time on the diffuse. Are you using a tablet?