lol. What racer is trying to say is that tangent space normal maps aren't just bump maps. They are a system to replace lowpoly normals with those from a highpoly model. That means not just adding small details onto surfaces, but replacing the shading behavior with that of a high poly model. You can do this kind of hand…
I could be wrong as I've never set up a cloth shader, but as far as I understand it the main part of a cloth material is Fresnel. The little fibres in cloth catch the light and cause it to "bend" across convex surfaces. Which makes the convex surfaces brighter and as a result the concave areas are darkened. so I think you…
A rock that big falling from the sky is going to leave a really big hole. Also some parts of it would probably still be glowing red hot. I would chuck some fresnel and an emmsive map on that material make those things stand out, and yeah make them smaller. It just seams odd seeing actual meteors laying on the surface like…
There's basically no point getting a pro series Wacom tablet unless you need a large size tablet or additional buttons. The difference in pressure levels is completely meaningless and you'll rarely if ever use tilt. If you're going to get a Wacom and only need a medium then buy something cheaper, like the Pen and Touch…
Yes and no. It all depends on what you are asking your displacement to do for you, similar to normal maps. The big advantage of displacement maps is they actually deform the surface and silhouette. I have never used displacement maps for hard surface stuff actually, so you might want to wait and see what someone else says.…
once you have some form of tessellation and map based pseudo limit surface such as a displacement map or vector displacement map things start to change quite a bit. as your poly count goes up you conform closer to the pseudo limit surface. then the tessellation takes you as close as the system will allow. at some density…
That is not true. We have a hard surface armor model that's full of curves and it's like 350,000 polygons. If you want precise control over curvature, soft and hard edges and transitions, UVs, etc. then you absolutely require a detailed model. You can however build this detailed model by starting with a low resolution…
The wall texture looks pretty nice! For the pillars, I think they're a little too soft and muddy in some areas. One thing I like to do with stones and most hard surfaces is applying noise over the entire thing. Nothing major, but it helps give the surface a little more texture. And when you bake it down, it isn't so…
Apologies for answering for him, but the pinching result happens with it being tris on a concave/convex/non-flat surface. It doesn't generally happen if you have quads in the same situation. If you have a pole being all tris, it generally gives that unwanted pinching affect (if the surface isn't flat). If you have all…
I worked on the gun for a little bit today, I don't particularly do hard surface work so its been fun to do so far ( i am waiting for the moment the hard surface dread sets in.. Any.. Day.. Now..). I'm just trying to think through some of the shapes and details of the piece to make them more interesting, without breaking…