Finally I made some progress on this one: retopology, unwrapping and normal map baking. First, this is my low poly: It's quite dense: 6026 tris. I think that part of the problem is the way I'm dealing with cylindrical parts: a low poly cylinder with 16 segments always seems too blocky to me, so I often end up giving it 20…
Yes and no. How many sides you use depends on a case by case basis; budgets, scale of the object, how often is it used, how significant is it, if animation hides some roughness, and so on. But one rule of thumb I use is to use about 150% the amount of sides for 200% the size. Here's a mockup based around the base circle…
Whoa, thanks a million for taking the time to make such a detailed post, @Snader ! I see. Considering all the cylindrical parts at almost the same level, regardless of their size and importance, was a really bad move of mine... the 1,5 ratio is a game changer! For those buttons, I kept the extra loop because they have a…