Baked Normal Map VS CrazyBump Normal Map
polycounter lvl 6
This may have been answred many times before, when is it best to bake a normal map or get crazy bump to generate one for you?
I'm guessing baked normal maps get that extra bit of detail and are best used for characters, weapons and props rather than say a building facade.
I'm guessing baked normal maps get that extra bit of detail and are best used for characters, weapons and props rather than say a building facade.
Replies
thanks again.
A bump/height map converted to a normal map is a simple 2d image, and will never account for smoothing or anything else. Basically you'll never have a lowpoly model that "looks" like a highpoly model without a baked normal map. A converted normal is always going to look exactly like what it is, a bump map thrown on a lowpoly model.
Detail is completely irrelevant to either method, as both methods are limited to the same amount of pixels/resolution.
Baked normals are generally best suited to any model that has a unique UV layout. However, tiling textures can also be baked from high resolution geometry.
Generated normals are often best for simple, noisy type textures, like a basic concrete wall. For things with more complex and larger shapes modeling or sculpting a high res mesh will often be faster, more accurate, better quality, or all 3.
Care to expand on why you've come to that decision, what type of work you're doing etc?
Often times I feel like people think doing crazybump normals is faster, or more convenient etc. However generally the root cause of this is that they are simply slow when it comes to high res modeling.
So it can be a lot more productive as an artist to say hey, I'm going to work on getting faster with high-res stuff, and challenge myself to create some cool sub-d work and sculpted models. If you're avoiding doing it because you think its slow or hard, thats just going to come back to bite you in the long term.
i'll be going through the high poly tutorial from 3d motive aswell which looks pretty good.