Also check out the surface map rendering included in 3dsmax its under Rendering > Render Surface Map. They where part of polyboost (now called Graphite modeling tools) and where included in 2010.
Good suggestions, sybrix. Regarding my rendering, sorry I don't know the difference between "engine" and "software rendering." I just rendered these shots using Vray; if that helps answer your question.
This evening's update! Still need to change that boot but got totally sidetracked :) Apologies for the terrible renders, still trying to figure out a nice but quick way to render these previews. Rendering is not my forte at all.
ghost rider, host both images, have your beauty render posted, but have it linked to the second render. so that if people want to see your flats, they can. but the focus remains on the beauty render.
Yeah you can just render it as a regular image if you can't "bake" it. You can even render normals this way too, just create a new Render Layer set to Normals. No baking required ;)
Post your images with IMGUR. Don't attach them like you did. Models look liek good starts, but what's the target render for these? Are you rendering these for a game engine, a CG renderer, or something else?
what you want is NPR(Non Photo Real) rendering. you can do that in many software. in maya you can render NPR with the maya vector renderer or use the mental ray contour shaders.
Looking forward to seeing some updates. As a side project to improve your rendering for your Dalek model I'd suggest looking up linear workflow in relation to rendering and create an IBL and render it in mental ray.
High Poly doesn't matter, just make it clear and pretty as possible in w/e engine/renderer. Just make sure your Low Poly stuff is in a game-engine renderer or real-time renderer.
Open the render dialog, scroll down to 'assign Renderer' and choose Mental Ray instead of Scanline. But he renderer is not really that important, when it comes to image quality...it all comes down to models, materials and lighting...