I'm modeling this ship for a contest; and I want these details... How should I do this to create the normal map? Booleans? Lots and lots of edge slices? Model each panel as a separate piece and suspend it above the surface below? Draw it on in something like Sculptris?
All those panels could be done in photoshop really easily. Lay out your UVs, save them, open them in PS and basically just draw black and white lines where you want the panels (black is down, white is up) and then just convert it to a normal map. You could also model those in, but judging by the shape, the wouldn't be…