Today I turned 23. Today also marks the day I realized how far away I am from getting that dream job of working in the game industry. On May 22nd I joined Polycount not knowing what a normal map really was and though a spec map was just the diffuse desaturated. At that point I had one year left until I was done with college. I began what I like to all "The One Year Crunch" Non stop I was absorbing information, I slowly but surely started to improve. Around January that year I started working on a scene based on Deus Ex Human Revolution. I had also been using up until that point the tool Ndo2. It is a great tool for generating normal maps inside Photoshop and can also be used for AO. Ndo2 at it's core should be used for two reasons.
1. Adding smaller detail to models baked down from a high poly
2. Quickly creating normal maps for tiling textures(or anything else with a flat surface)
With those two points it can be great. You will be able to speed up your workflow greatly. I however used it the wrong way. As a replacement for high poly models. I spent a entire year not once creating a high poly model and choose to use Ndo2 for everything and it turned out ok at first. People said the scene looked good and it also made Ndo2 look good showing what can be done with it. So after I continued to just use it up until just a few months ago.
To make a long story shot. I used Ndo2 as a crutch Every scene I worked on after was not only rushed due to me feeling I needed to get a job right out of college but now my high poly modeling skill's are really lacking. Sure baking out a nice wall or floor is easy but getting to more complex stuff sends me screeching to a halt. This is unacceptable and kinda upset it took me this long to figure out.
So as it stands my escape scene is not going to make it. Ran into a lot of issues with said high poly work. GOing to take my time and make sure it is finished right!
So here starts the next journey, my own personal "Snake way" if you will. I have spent the past 2 years trying to perfect my texturing, low poly modeling,lighting and mastering the material editor in UDK that I ignored the most important part. The high poly modeling and baking. Somewhere deep down I knew I should have been doing that but Ndo2 offered the easy way out.
Well that changes starting today.
1. Adding smaller detail to models baked down from a high poly
2. Quickly creating normal maps for tiling textures(or anything else with a flat surface)
With those two points it can be great. You will be able to speed up your workflow greatly. I however used it the wrong way. As a replacement for high poly models. I spent a entire year not once creating a high poly model and choose to use Ndo2 for everything and it turned out ok at first. People said the scene looked good and it also made Ndo2 look good showing what can be done with it. So after I continued to just use it up until just a few months ago.
To make a long story shot. I used Ndo2 as a crutch Every scene I worked on after was not only rushed due to me feeling I needed to get a job right out of college but now my high poly modeling skill's are really lacking. Sure baking out a nice wall or floor is easy but getting to more complex stuff sends me screeching to a halt. This is unacceptable and kinda upset it took me this long to figure out.
So as it stands my escape scene is not going to make it. Ran into a lot of issues with said high poly work. GOing to take my time and make sure it is finished right!
So here starts the next journey, my own personal "Snake way" if you will. I have spent the past 2 years trying to perfect my texturing, low poly modeling,lighting and mastering the material editor in UDK that I ignored the most important part. The high poly modeling and baking. Somewhere deep down I knew I should have been doing that but Ndo2 offered the easy way out.
Well that changes starting today.
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