For October's post I've started using the high poly to low poly method for creating textures and have so far really liked the process as opposed to creating textures solely in Gimp. It eliminates a lot of the guess work and calculating that goes into creating a height template, then generating a normal map in Gimp. Plus it's been a nice change creating high poly meshes with being able to model and not having face count constantly in the back of your mind. Baking ambient occlusion maps and adding them as a layer to textures created in Gimp also creates a bit of noise which produces a little bit of flavor to solid colors as well as emphasizing light and shadow. In general I've found it to make the texture process quicker and less painful. I have a couple shots of before and afters. They are still in need of few tweaks and adjustments though. Unfortunately there were no updates to the coliseum as my brother's hard drive crashed. We didn't lose anything, but we also didn't gain anything this month. Thankfully he's back up and running now. I'd also like to give a quick, really vague mention of a third project brewing on the back burners. “The Invincible Man” As far as it's use in Blender, it will be making use of renders as opposed to the game engine. In what form, is yet to be established. So ya... “The Invincible Man”... it's coming... watch for it.
