I must say that I was very surprised by the strong impact that these normal maps had on those asteroids. The resolution of the normal maps is low (128x256), but the resolution of the texture is even lower (64x128) and there is no relation between the normal map and the texture itself.
This results in that what you see in above pictures is mainly influenced by the normal map. I used 4 different ones of grainy rock structures for the different asteroids from Charlie. Changing the normal maps gives a complete other look to the asteroid. I wonder if Charlie would recognise his asteroids?
Retouch and improvements to initial models: Eric Walch / Griff (you did not remember that, Griff? )
wow, well, they didn't look anywhere near as amazing as that when i handed the files back to Eric, i just did a bit of mesh cleanup on them, they were full of overlapping polygons and unwelded verts - charlie was a big fan of point jitter i think
Splendid, splendiferous! a_c, you really have an eye for framing a shot.
Indeed. I wonder what the ratio of scrapped shots to kept shots is? That middle one looks particularly good - with the light glancing off the shuttle just so.