I've decided to make some tests on the normal mapping shader with our new ATI's NormalMapper Linux tool, to push this shading method to its limits. And the result is pretty good !
I've found a VERY high poly model : a 3D scanned man. This mesh use someting like 780.000 vertices, and the TRI file is probably arround 75 MB long (Blender is exporting the file since 20 minutes now, and it's not finished yet
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
).
I've reduced the model (using internal Blender reducer) to 2010 vertices (670 triangle only !). The result is ugly, as you can imagine
See this screenshot in blender :
This the head of our man, in low poly (left) and high poly (right). The mesh on the right is only triangles ! No texture, no shading, ... (this is really a huge mesh).
The left mesh is almost impossible to recognize.
I've then generated a normal map with our NormalMapper port for Linux (
http://ftp.cqfd-corp.org/NormalMapperLinux.tar.gz ... a more official package will come):
The original file is 1024x1024.
Once mapped (thanks to the
impressive new UV unwrapper of Blender !), here it is the result in Raydium:
The left render use a basic ambient occulusion texture, and the one on the right ... an UGLY texture I made in 10 seconds with Gimp
I found the results very impressive ... there's a lot of details for a such simple mesh !
I'll do more tests, using a not so reduced model (20.000 vertices seems correct to keep a good shape of the original mesh), keeping posting here.