This recipe will show you how to extract a normal map from your sculpted model. Normal maps are an excellent tool for adding more detail to your objects without all the polygons. This is an essential tool if you are creating assets for next generation games such as the Call of Duty series or Mass Effect. The texture will pick up light information in a way that suggests more detail than is actually modeled into the object.
For this recipe you will need a model with multiple subdivision levels so that you can bake information from the high resolution level down to the lower resolution level. If you have a sculpt that you have created in Mudbox and you'd like to follow along, then go ahead and load it up now. If you do not have a sculpt of your own or you would just like to follow the recipe more closely, then you can open up Victorian Lioness Not UVed.mud
. When you open up the file you should see the following screenshot:
This sculpt...