You need to use a multi/sub-object material. It's pretty simple. Here's a quick tutorial: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJY2OxTVhiY[/ame] Try not to use more than 2 sub-materials for pieces that will get used heavily. The more materials you use the more expensive the unit will get.
1) There was a discussion about this on the Technical Talk forum a while ago, but I can't find it on the wiki. But yeah, you don't need to worry about baking a normal map for that, all you need is a good spec/gloss map for the highlights. Maybe it's better if you do the test by yourself: Bake a normal map from a very…
I'm glad you guys like it! Definitely. A good environment artist must be efficient with his resources and time. If you look at current-gen console tiles you won't see much uniquely mapped stuff. Red Dead Redemption is a good example for this: They use tiling textures and modularity everywhere but they hide it so well that…