High Poly Modelling, aka Sub Division modelling aka Next Generation Modelling is something I've been putting off learning for some time. Mainly because its not needed for the types of models I tend to make but I thought I better have a go at it sooner or later.

So I decided to make this Bulkhead Door for ehhh, "practice"

At first it was quite a challenge to get into the new work flow but think I've pretty much got it now after reading lots of different tuts and seeking a little help from [R-DEV]Stigger etc

Here is my High Poly modelling, weighing in at a whopping 83,522 polys (167,287 tris) and 3 ounces




And here is my Low Poly model weighing in at 328 polys (647 tris).




And here is the Low Poly Model with the baked normal map from the high poly and the diffuse texture ontop




Basically for thous of you who dont understand the normal map baked off the high poly version helps makes the low poly look like it has more detail than it really has in the model, but reflecting light in different ways to make the object feel smoother and adds indents etc

Modelling the high poly model like I said was quite a challenge at first to get my head around the new workflow, but after I got into the flow of it, it was really easy to add lots and lots of details in and it was much funner than normal modelling since you can get carried away with the details without having to think about optimization or poly counts just making it looks as round as possible
If any one is interested in learning high poly modelling I can recommend these tuts as the main ones I used:
An Introduction to Subdivision (High-Poly) Modeling Tools and Techniques - Cgtuts+
Using High Poly 3D Models as Normal Maps In Theory & Practice - NFSCars Forums

Hopefully I can take these new skills into crating many more high quality objects with detailed normal maps baked from a high poly model


Cheers for reading