Back to basics – crate exercise. 512×512 texture with 256×256 resolution per face, set to appropriate UE3 scale.
Amidst all of the craziness this weekend, I spent 30 minutes to set up a good reference from CGtextures, 5 minutes to get a AO bake out of XNormal, ~1 hour to ensure solid crate construction in Photoshop, 15 minutes to cook out some really subtle normal mapping, and another 30-60 minutes to play around in Maya 2009′s new and improved Mental Ray render software. I technically feel like I spent more time messing around with render settings than actually working on the crate by the end of this quickie. The hardware viewport is greatly improved, just for the record. Soooo sexy.
