Normal maps

[FiveEight]

Is anyone using normal mapping on their vehicles/buildings? I've read that the engine supports it, but the methods I've seen for creating them seem very complicated and since the engine lets you use so many polygons for such visually small units (I can remember having to make Half Life characters with fewer polys than MoW infantry have...) is it worthwhile?

I can see the sample pz4G has a bump map applied, but that seems to be a greyscale bumpmap rather than the RGB channel type normal maps I've seen tutorials for.

Any comments would be really helpful.

[Matze:O:G:H]

Bump maps are really important if want to create the most realistc map:
Model a high res model with every possible detail, then model a low res model and then render the bump map and apply it to the low res model

[RR_Raptor65]

What I like do is after I've completed the model's texture, I'll copy it and paint a grayscale heightmap over the top of it and use a program like XNormal (http://www.xnormal.net/Downloads.aspx) to turn it into a full fledged normalmap.

Here's a model of the Cloverfield Parasite I made awhile back using this method:
http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq291/RR_Raptor65/th_parasitemodelzk6.jpg (http://s457.photobucket.com/albums/qq291/RR_Raptor65/?action=view&current=parasitemodelzk6.jpg)

[FiveEight]

Thanks for the advice. Looks like there's several different ways/applications to do it. I'll have to try out some simple test models and see how I get on and if it's worth the extra time. Leaning towards the high poly method as I'm not the best texture guy in the world. I'll post any good results I get.

[Senor Freebie]

Normal maps could be very handy for keeping poly counts low in MOW. I would highly recommend however, using them sparingly. Texture limits are not that high and wasting texture space on something like that would be illogical on such a small model. Better to, for example, have 1 tileable normal map for wheels.