Your edits are degrading the quality of the heightmap that you create the normal and therefore curvature from, probably taking it from 16 to 8 bit in the process, causing stepping?
Agreed...better. If this is only an 8 episode thing. I don't think we are going to get any of the actual MK tournament in this. Maybe something for the next series.
@Eric Chadwick And what if it's not for a game and you plan to texture the high poly model? For example if these models will be used in a high res still image thats 8 k+