Quote: "Easy. Trick him into giving you a DNA sample. Then, grow a clone and force it to make assets and then take the credit for them."
ZOMG!?! REALLY??????
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Keith is right, it is all separate maps that play a part i making it look right at a certain angle, instead of lighting baked down to the diffuse you would make the texture with flat unlit colours, then use a specular map to position highlights and colour/shape (ish) of the shine in areas. A low glossiness on the specular shine will make skin and wood look more realistic, as the shine is spread out. Normal maps are just awesome, and im beginning to really love them, like Keith said, it is like bump mapping, but split into 3 channels rather than grayscale, these being left to right, up to down and depth (which can also be used as petty ambient occlusion) The whole blueish-purple look of a normal map is just coincidence.
primarily its these 3 maps that make the model 'look good'
...but obviously you also need a good mesh
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