Asterix in low poly (first post ever here because the number of tris is >500 ^____^) tris: 1128 tex: 256*256 + 128*128 @ThatDon and Bryan Cavett : in love of your street fighters busts!
Well depending on your system specs, 12m isnt really that big of a deal. Maybe in zbrush? I dont think you'de have too many problems rendering normals in XN for example with a 12m mesh.
freaking awesome! And 105? Wow! What shall it cost? I'd love to see 'em all in some kind of an overview picture, ha ha ha. How long did it take you to do all 105?
I think the problem is caused by white background in normal map, probably caused by alpha. Those white stripes on dilated edges give those shading problems, 127 127 255 color background may fix this.
Your color divided by 256 = Color value between 0 and 1. For example : 127 (gray) = 127 / 256 = 0.496. Note that our color widget is in linear space (not sRGB as in Photoshop).
No way you should never use anything bigger than a 128, because people who cant put a lot of detail into a 128 clearly dont have any tallent whatsoever.
Discoloration is fine, but your average color should be close to that normal map 128 128 255. Should look more like this for a boxy asset, http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2Z35mw4QhXA/URpHAR-I7cI/AAAAAAAAAJE/1cQi1ApRU9w/s400/Normal_Map_bump.jpg
Push it lower until you are unhappy with the results :) 128 x 128 is a little high for a staircase unless there is a nice shadow cut running over the object ... but then again if you are just going to a beauty shot it is probably ok. Nice work!
I tried to break it up on the side. It's a little 128*128 piece of broken wall texture. Doesn't really show i guess. But a vine i'ts a good idea, had some thoughts about it before..