To help with the gradients, do exactly what Bartalon says. When you are baking the normal map, try using a 16bit tiff and converting it to an 8bit image in Photoshop, that will dither the image and smooth out the banding artifacts.
I agree, you want something that you can edit easily without destroying the image quality and if you'll be painting out lighting and shadows and such, having a uncompressed image will make the end results much better.
Hahaha Uncle Sam's Misguided Children. I indeed have difficulties in finding the scope cover details. I'll save your images for reference and future use. Thanks for the tips and images, DWalker. It's very helpful.
@Ace-Angel: It appears some of the images linked are to a private area on the affuniverse website. I cannot see the images and also get that login prompt. I mentioned it above, but I think ikarus somehow missed it.
here? http://www.bmeijer.com/gallery/mars_terraformed/mars_terraformed_flat.gif more on google: http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=terraformed+mars&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=
Alright, I've managed to highlight the edges as well as texturing the stainless steel to fit in with TF2 a bit more. Here's the results: Also, here's a mockup of the item on the medic, first image is the front, second image is the back.
You could make 2d from 3d by rendering out the images. If its an animation, render out the animation as a set of images. Really though, all it takes to do decent 2d from drawing is practice.
If you have a grey image, each RGB channel will show the same grey contents, so no need to convert. Just pick which channels you want to store which images, and paste them in as needed.
Your right. I went back and lowered the spec & changed the diffuse color slightly, not so Lime now. more natural green. (Updated Image above for sake of not having 100 images of the same thing)
There is a "material transform" node that may be more what you are looking for. It will allow you to resize and move the image you are wanting to manipulate (just like moving around and scaling an image in photoshop). Maybe give that a try!