You can reinforce your edges to maintain hard edges as in the image below The left box has reinforced edges which maintains the shape of the cube (The last image shows the corner on how these edges are layed out) The second cube just uses chamfered edges which gives a rounder cube. And the last has no edge reinforcement…
yea you need to paint out those scaloped edges in photoshop. its your normal not lining up with the edge. Its a simple paint out, just lay your uv's ontop of your normalmap as a guideline and paint. you also got areas messed up on the top vent thingy.
that's tangent space normal mapping for you you could make those edges hard ( via smoothing groups if max user) and rebake your normal map that will resolve the marked issues but it will also generate well ... a hard edge ! only criticism i can offer despite that is that i think you bolted on metal plates are too round…
No you only do that to your high poly to keep the hard edges. Your low poly would remain the same. It just for using mesh smooth etc. Can you post a render of your high poly model?
I like it man. Your still getting some normal distortion around the top area, also parts on the left edge of the center unit with the hose. Also maybe thinking about a different surface type going around the center there, reminds me of tank tracks sorta. Maybe a coil of wires, or something. Just something to think about.…