Hard work texture maps!

Hi Ho, well recently i have been trying all different techniques/programs to work out how people get low poly meshes with high poly maps into 3-d applicatins for rigging *yawn*. My conclusion is.....it's awkward, but 3ds max seemed to be the easiest way to import all the different maps, it made the most satisfying results because the new node based plug-in was very simple to use.....ish.

Anyway i decided to put a lid on the high poly troll in mudbox and concentrated on importing it from 2.5 million tri's to something like 4000 to work with! (crazy), i decided not to detail as much as i wanted to because it was taking to much of my time. But i was happy with the end result and has learnt me a lot for my next conquest, heres a screen of the finished mudbox model :)

So after a lot of different research and trial and error with maya/xsi this is the result i ended up with in 3ds max, it's around 4000 tri's which would be a lot for a game character i know but will still be good for the animating in real-time. I am creating another character to be in the sequence to go alongside this one with the same workflow. The idea is just a short animation to show body mechanics and be a nice addition to my showreel and help me for my final year :)
This is how it ended up, it's still missing some detail but it's confusing why at the minute :S

Also if i haven't made anyone fall asleep yet this is how i am getting on with my channel ident, i decided instead of rotoscoping origional star wars footage i would find some 3-d models and use them in the scene. Regarding the teleport effect i am after i have achieved it by a tutorial in after effects and should hopefully be straight forward. Heres a screengrab of how the scene is looking and the other two are layered in photoshop of what i am trying to achieve :

 

Until next time :)