Hpw long did you work this anyway? It looks veeerrrryyy huge, it makes me wonder, how huge is it measured in wed?? Does it have rooms inside?
Took about a week to make all the textures. It is't a full castle, just a part of one. its about 2400 quants wide and 1600 quants deep. No there are no insides... maybe next time.
well now remember... when using blocks.. the textures can have that fake normalmapping effect naturally...
Darker shadows and brighter brights render in almost 3D already when used on blocks. Just some changes to the contrast mostly with these textures can go a long way toward realism without the use of shaders.
Why would blocks fake this better than models?
While shadows and highlights can be baked quite effectively into a texture map replacing the surface normals completely gives a more effective representation of detailed shadowing with direct relationship to the lighing of a scene. Specular mapping enhances the effect further.
Be careful of making textures with too much contrast. This leads to all kinds of problems like aliasing and shadowing issues. The shadows in the textures seem to 'fight' the lighting of a scene. Better to create a texture with less shadowing that can be used in a greater variety of lighting situations.
What could really help this scene is better lighting. I just used the A7 sun. If i went crazy with smaller lights simulating radiosity or rendered it in MAX, I'm sure it could be better, but I'm done with the scene and on to other things. This was just for fun. I like castles.
Here's a crop of one of the textures which demonstrates what I believe to be a good compromise between shadowing and quality. Can't really see the detail in the textures in the shots.
