normal test

Playing with normal maps today after talking to a friend to explain the way I would go about making a sheet of corrigated metal.

The way I explained to him was to create an extreamly high poly model with all the dents and rivets i want in the final product then to bake out a Normal map and Ambient occlusion map using Xnormal then apply those maps to a flat plane for use if the player would never get close enough to examine it, if the player would get close enough then to apply the maps to a low poly version of the model.

I put this to practice and the images above are the result. the 1st model is the mapped plane it is 1 solitary poly, 2nd is the low poly model it stands at 73 polys, the final is the high poly at a staggering 3504 polys.

As you can see the Normal and AO maps are working quite well on the plane it gives an effect of it being corrigated but in game the player would notice the lack of 3d on it if they managed to get close to it. on the low poly model the maps are working brilliantly you can see the rivets and dents the only real issue on both is there are some smoothing issues but they can be sorted.