Adding mesh detail without increasing vertex/tris count

[Aniruddh]

My part is rather basic and doesn't have a lot of detail, however the tris count is massive, and the .mu file size is double that of the usual part. I removed 5 torus that were meant to be cooling pipes, and the .mu file size halved, which is reasonable for a part it's size and purpose. I decided to not use a mesh to render this, but to instead put this detail on a texture. I tried bump maps and normal maps, but neither give it an actual 3d look. How would I add detail to an object's surface that is (at least somewhat) 3d and gives depth to the texture, and doesn't involving adding another mesh? I want to do something like the fine detail on the KS-25 engine nozzle, without dramatically increasing tris count.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Aniruddh

[Electrocutor]

On 9/28/2020 at 2:32 PM, Aniruddh said:

My part is rather basic and doesn't have a lot of detail, however the tris count is massive, and the .mu file size is double that of the usual part. I removed 5 torus that were meant to be cooling pipes, and the .mu file size halved, which is reasonable for a part it's size and purpose. I decided to not use a mesh to render this, but to instead put this detail on a texture. I tried bump maps and normal maps, but neither give it an actual 3d look. How would I add detail to an object's surface that is (at least somewhat) 3d and gives depth to the texture, and doesn't involving adding another mesh? I want to do something like the fine detail on the KS-25 engine nozzle, without dramatically increasing tris count.

This might help you: 

 

Also, make sure you select one of the shaders that supports normals as several KSP shaders do not.

[Aniruddh]

1 hour ago, Electrocutor said:

This might help you: 

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Also, make sure you select one of the shaders that supports normals as several KSP shaders do not.

I know how to make normal maps, they do work, but I'd really like something a bit beyond that- something which adds physical depth to the model, rather than affecting lighting to give the illusion of depth.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Aniruddh

[hemeac]

@Aniruddh, are you thinking something closer to displacement maps?  I've fooled around with microdisplacements in Blender, but not sure if that technique works well in real-time.  How does your file sizes compare to some of the BDB 1.7 parts?  I would be guessing in late 2020, can have a bit more detailed parts than we had in 2013.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cg_Programming/Unity/Displacement_Maps

[Aniruddh]

11 hours ago, hemeac said:

@Aniruddh, are you thinking something closer to displacement maps?  I've fooled around with microdisplacements in Blender, but not sure if that technique works well in real-time.  How does your file sizes compare to some of the BDB 1.7 parts?  I would be guessing in late 2020, can have a bit more detailed parts than we had in 2013.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cg_Programming/Unity/Displacement_Maps

Displacement maps do have the intended effect, yes, I got it to work in the render view in blender. The main problem however is how to add it to a shader in unity that supports displacement maps (there are no default shaders like this (that work with ksp) that I know of so far).

[hemeac]

That sounds like a fair bit of work to add a new shader for a couple of parts though.

Going back to the OP, but did you reduce the number of segments on the torus's (torii?) that you created from the defaults?  If they are small details, you could keep the number of segments small and then just set the shading in Blender to smooth and that should help the illusion of details at distances that most KSP users will be viewing the parts