Ok here is my low poly version (which i previously said i wouldnt do :p ) atm i have got it down to 25k, the rings take up 8k by them selves SAM_Turret_Low by Noxain, on Flickr
You could definitely make your texture a lot smaller. You could probably get it down to a 128/256, especially seeming as it is so low poly. I really like your colour choice though, nice stuff!
31K points is still pretty low, maybe subdivide once or twice more. The first image in comparison is at 2.7 million. Also your matcap might be contributing to the faceted look. Try switching the material to something else and see if that helps.
Yeah those shadows are definitely a simple octagon. And I wouldn't be surprised if the reflection texture was a single screenspace one instead of a cubemap. But if you're just emulating the style, yeah stick to about 500 tris and a 256² with a simple cubemap in engine.
Nice! 256 or 512 would seem more appropriate I agree. It's a shame the banner's missing. It's a key element to the character. The beard somhow looks like part of his garnment, some darker strokes in the beard would help too.
I'd like to convert say a Red value of 255 to Alpha value of 100, and Red value of 0 to Alpha value of 0.. it'd be best if maps didn't need to be generated or processed as there are a large number of objects that would need conversion.
These look sweet, the bakes came out pretty nice as well. Since the UV's are pretty tightly packed, were there any issues with edge padding? Great job :) EDIT: Also, you said your normal maps were baked for 256 while the diffuse was 512, wouldn't the maps then be offset when placed on the character?
Yes but that would be a real pain to texture. And technically I would still be using power of 2 UVs, as in it would be either 256, 512, 1024, 2048 etc but the UVs wouldn't be square. This is a UV template render of my quick UVing (very quick) I think I'll move all objects to the top of the map
Alright, my first hand painted texture... Just another stone tileable. I know it still needs much work, but I'm stuck on specifically how to improve it. 512 Texture (final will likely be 256): Tiled: I'm unhappy with how highlights look right now, but I'm happy with how the tiling is looking.
Some more stuff, hope I improved some! 1024x1024^3 here. Will post maps if requested. Also, there are black lines on the sword.. I think it'd due to Xnormal's filtering... can anyone confirm? 468 tris 227 tris http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=swordlevel2ti7.jpg 484 tris