Normal Mapping

I’ve played a lot with using displacement maps and normal maps. Using the Mastering Maya 2009 book I created a normal map entirely in Maya. However I was unable to do this with my character in Maya as I forgot to freeze the main transformations and therefore the envelope was all over the place. I attempted this in mudbox but came across crashes and faulty UV maps. In the end I used a wood image as a 3D displacement map and MentalRay did the rest.

I have however learnt a lot about the maps and how they can be used to crate complicated and well modelled characters or creatures using minimal memory in game. This is definitely one of the big factors in games nowadays.