“Making of Varga ” by Paul Tosca The next step down the line will be detailing the low poly version so i will import a cleaned up version of the low poly into mudbox to upres and detail and i will also load the diffuse texture to check that the detail i will add will register correctly with the diffuse … then start to add divisions/levels to the geo and adding details like big folds and big volumes …
I will use height maps made from the diffuse texture to displace the fine details ( it will speed up the process and also this way i will make sure that the computed normal map will match closely the diffuse than if i will sculpt directly using the mapped diffuse on top of high ) …
All is working well and i will export the final level to compute the normal map with maya/3dsmax or other program that will use raytracing for the process and will assure proper display of the normal map in the final engine but if i was not too careful when detailing i will encounter something like in the images below ( the effect was exaggerated here so i can make a point )
You can see that the details in the diffuse on one hand and the normal map on the other will not register correctly … this is due to the fact that during sculpting of the big folds i displaced/shifted the geometry a little and though i used displacement maps to add details like buttons this will not assure that when raytracing the details for the normal map they will overlay perfectly with the diffuse ; to avoid this , the high rez detailing should be done with care if possible not big displacements from the original cage/low poly version … but this will hinder you since the whole point will be to add as much variation in the surface direction as you can and big volumes also.
The issue will be toned down if you will use zbrush and will compute the normal map not with raytracing but with zbrush internal algorithm that will take into account all the subdivision levels , but its less likely that the normal map will be displayed properly in other software / engine if you will compute it that way , the old problem of seam display : every software i used to compute normals (and i have tried a few) have a slightly different method of computing/displaying normal maps in tangent space.
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