How to - low poly grill step for catwalk

Support Modeling
1

is there a low poly but still looking good for this type of step

right now taking like 7000 verts I mean
it looks great but when you have a lot of these
blender get sluggish quickly !

ZZZgril1
ZZZgril11920×1080 314 KB

thanks for any feedback
happy bl

2

The low poly way is to use transparency and normalmap. It’s only 4 verts then.

3

not certain if this method can give a nice 3D effect or just a flat grill

this is a step with something like 1 1/2 inch high
too much I think for a normal map !

I already have a flat grill for very thin grill and looks ok
but with such a thickness can it be done with a normal map ?

got any sample model for this ?

thanks for feedback
happy cl

4

image
image1023×513 31.3 KB

image
image1044×479 20.3 KB

You could use more primitive shapes, this took it down to 424 vers.

You could also do some research on “Paralax occlusion”, ive only seen it used on bricks though, and i dont know if blender supports it, but if it does, then it would be perfect for this case.

5

I also use only elongated cube primitive to do another model
< 1000 verts

but still I got 100 of feet of this things
so the whole scene get high verts count
would be nice to see a way to do it either with normal map if possible
or not certain at all using this parallax occlusion thing
will do some research this night

thanks
happy bl

6

Test with normal mapping and parallax mapping.

grills.blend (3.4 MB)

upper mesh: normal mapping
lower mesh: parallax mapping

7

thanks for the sample file

the one on the right indicate parallax group node
have not played with parallax thing
I see 3 images
how do you organize the nodes to get render

thanks
happy bl

8

Can’t understand the question. Could you try to use full sentences?

Updated the blend file in my previous post.

9

you are using some custom made group with princi shader
which is nice way of doing it

but not rendering
it is totally transparent !

any paramaters to be set to get a normal render ?

thanks
happy bl

10

Updated it again.

I hope this time I localized all the groups.

11

see rendered
it looks pretty good even better with the mask added
was not expecting the nor map to show that much height
is it with 8 bits NOR map or 16 bits ?

Zgr1
Zgr1960×540 460 KB

nice results
did you do all the images in blender or used
Gimp too ?

thanks
happy cl

12

I baked the textures with Handplane, all 8 bits. The normalmap shows that much detail because in the model I gave the vertical edges an angle.

13

You should only use 16bit if you need a higher dynamic range for things like lighting (HDRs can also use 32bit), or for displacement maps. Its VERY rare to use 16bit for albedo, normal, bump, etc.

14

the slope things does give more depth
and is a nice trick indeed

the other one with parallax
will try to find some notes or tut but it does not really look much better

thanks
happy cl