I’m looking to create like a pebble drive way. I can create the models in 3ds Max, scatter them randomly etc but I’m trying to keep this part of the scene light (or maybe the polygons won’t matter too much?). I thought about use maybe some kind of normal texture but obviously won’t look as good. What are my options?
Thanks in advance.
You could look into parallax occlusion, few links:
Well if you want an accurate result you could play around with texture base solutions but they never look “real” world correct as a replacement for actual geometry and if the project needs to be future proof then the need for next next gen games would be Tessellation using height maps.
The problem and need for mesh density really is one that has been solved a long time ago and in most cases mesh density has been limited to what the engine would or would not allow, usually limited to 64k, where UE4 does not limit the need for X amount of detail so the logic path now is make it look how it should look first and then worry about optimization as part of the polishing stage based on the sum total.
Simple logic.
Make it to much as it’s easier to make to much less than it is to try and make not enough do more. (aka future proof your project)
The big hit these days = draw calls by the way.
Thanks for the suggestions I’ll look into them both.