Baking A Normal Map of Indented triangle panels - is there a procedural way?

This is a model I’ve been working on.
http://i.imgur.com/bvbJx5Zl.png

I wanted to make metal riveted-on panels, by baking a normal map for the entire ico-sphere structure. Something like this:

Notice the little lines between the metal panels.

Is there any procedural way that can do this, without having to actually duplicate vertices, downscale them and raise them above the main hull.

Here’s the rendered view:

http://i.imgur.com/clIvv8S.png

Cheers!

are the triangles same size then the egg s faces under it ?

happy bl

I’m sorry, I don’t understand. The first picture shows flat shading (and faces) while the second is smooth shaded. If you mean that the triangles are the same size of the faces, then yeah, that’s correct. Could you clarify?

Cheeers

you can extrude each face individually normal to the existing face
then you can move or re scale too!

did u try it ?

can you upload you egg shape in a file sample!

happy bl

Ah, that’s a nice idea! But I was rather hoping there’d be some procedural way to texture it like that. Ah well. Thanks!

Here’s the .blend.

Attachments

Main Hub.blend (1.04 MB)

how did u do the first big egg with tris ?
did u use a script ?

I will copy it and try to extrude it

thanks

I just added an Icosphere, and subdivided it in edit mode. Scaled it along X a bit to get the egg shape. Also, I extruded it already, so no need to do that.

It’s being made as a game model, so I wanted it low poly. But nvm lol. I’ve extruded the faces, and I’ll bake the normal map. Thanks a lot for the help! :slight_smile:

Now I need to give it a brushed gritty metal look. sighs

to extrude individual faces
go into mesh menu and select extrude then individual faces
then if you are in individual face mode on bottom header you can scale move rotate all faces individually!

hope it helps

happy bl

Yeah, I did that :slight_smile: here’s the images thanks:

http://i.imgur.com/l37WnFZ.png
http://i.imgur.com/B0yKyf7.png